Make your own Biodiesel Part 1
There are at least three methods to run a diesel motor on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All three are utilized with both fresh and used oils.
1. Use the oil simply as it is– usually called SVO fuel (straight veggie oil);
2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a solvent, or with gas;
3. Convert it to biodiesel.
The very first two methods sound simplest, however, as so frequently in life, it’s not quite that easy.
1. Mixing it
Vegetable oil is far more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams more freely 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 utilizing fossilfuel– cleaner than the majority of, however still unclean enough, numerous would say. Still, for each gallon of
vegetable oil you utilize, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.
People use different blends, varying from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just utilize it that way, start up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps utilize pure veggie oil without pre-heating it, which would make it much thinner.
You may get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is a very tough and tolerant motor– it will not like it but you most likely won’t eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not smart.
To do it correctly you’ll need 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 gas are “speculative at best”, little or absolutely nothing is known about their effects on the combustion qualities of the fuel or their long-term impacts on the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical homes and combustion qualities from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are designed.
Diesel motor are state-of-the-art machines with extremely accurate fuel requirements, especially the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).
They are difficult but they’ll just take so much abuse. There’s no guarantee of it, however using a blend of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically in summer season.
Otherwise using veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But mixes do have an advantage in winter.
Similar to biodiesel, some kerosene or fuel blended with straight vegetable oil reduces the temperature at which it begins to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel mixing and blends.
