Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

There are at least three ways to run a diesel motor on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are utilized with both fresh and secondhand oils.

1. Use the oil simply as it is– normally 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 gasoline;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 techniques sound simplest, however, as so frequently in life, it’s not quite that basic.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is far more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams 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 utilizing fossilfuel– cleaner than most, however still unclean enough, numerous would state. Still, for each gallon of

grease you utilize, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

People use numerous mixes, ranging from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% and 10% petro-diesel. Some people simply use it that way, begin up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even utilize pure grease 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 hard and tolerant motor– it will not like it but you most likely won’t eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not wise.

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

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gas are “speculative at best”, little or absolutely nothing is understood about their effects on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using veggie oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are created.

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

They are difficult however they’ll only take a lot abuse. There’s no assurance of it, but using a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer season.

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

As with biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel combined with straight grease decreases the temperature level at which it begins to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel blending and blends.