Make your own Biodiesel Part 1

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

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

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 two techniques sound easiest, however, as so typically in life, it’s not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is far more viscous (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 blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (like # 1 diesel) you’re still using fossilfuel– cleaner than a lot of, but still not clean enough, many would say. Still, for each gallon of

grease you use, that’s one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less in the environment.

People use different blends, varying from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply use it that method, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even use 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 very difficult and tolerant motor– it won’t like it however you most likely won’t eliminate it. Otherwise, it’s not smart.

To do it appropriately you’ll need what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, preferably using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there’s no requirement for the blends.

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

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

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

They are difficult however they’ll just take so much abuse. There’s no assurance of it, but utilizing a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer season.

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

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