Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

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

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

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 approaches sound most convenient, however, as so frequently in life, it’s not quite that simple.

1. Mixing it

Grease is far more thick (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 using fossilfuel– cleaner than a lot of, however still unclean enough, lots of would state. Still, for each gallon of

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

People utilize numerous blends, varying from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just use it that method, start 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 may get away with it with an older Mercedes 5-cylinder IDI diesel, which is an extremely tough and tolerant motor– it won’t like it but you most likely will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not sensible.

To do it effectively you’ll require what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, 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 different solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are “experimental at finest”, little or absolutely nothing is learnt about their results on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with using grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are developed.

Diesel motor are modern makers with extremely accurate fuel requirements, specifically the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They’re hard however they’ll only take so much abuse. There’s no assurance of it, but utilizing a mix 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 option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a poor compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in winter.

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