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Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three methods to run a diesel engine on biofuel utilizing vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are used with both fresh and used oils.

1. Use the oil just as it is– typically called SVO fuel (straight veggie oil);

2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or mix it with a solvent, or with gas;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first 2 techniques sound most convenient, but, as so often in life, it’s not quite that simple.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more easily through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.

If you’re mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (like # 1 diesel) you’re still using fossilfuel– cleaner than most, however still not clean enough, numerous would say. Still, for every single gallon of

vegetable oil you use, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.

People utilize numerous blends, varying from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% veggie oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps utilize pure veggie oil without pre-heating it, which would make it much thinner.

You might get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a really difficult and tolerant motor– it will not like it however you most likely will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not sensible.

To do it correctly you’ll require what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, ideally utilizing pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there’s no requirement for the mixes.

Blends with different solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are “experimental at finest”, little or nothing is understood about their results on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with utilizing grease as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical homes and combustion characteristics from the fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.

Diesel motor are high-tech machines with extremely accurate fuel requirements, especially the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

They’re hard but they’ll just take so much abuse. There’s no warranty of it, but utilizing a blend of as much as 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically in summer season.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But blends do have an advantage in winter.

As with biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight vegetable oil reduces the temperature level at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter season) More about fuel blending and blends.