Make your own Biodiesel Part 1
There are at least three methods to run a diesel motor on biofuel using veggie oils, animal fats or both. All three are utilized with both fresh and pre-owned oils.
1. Use the oil simply 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 gas;
3. Convert it to biodiesel.
The very first 2 methods sound easiest, however, as so frequently in life, it's not rather that simple.
1. Mixing it
Grease is much more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more freely through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.
If you're blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (very same as # 1 diesel) you're still using fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, but still unclean enough, lots of would state. Still, for each gallon of
grease you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.
People use different mixes, ranging from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some people simply use it that way, start up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even use 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 very hard and tolerant motor-- it will not like it but you probably won't eliminate it. Otherwise, it's not wise.
To do it effectively 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 need for the mixes.
Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded gas are "experimental at best", little or nothing is understood about their results on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing veggie oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are developed.
Diesel motor are state-of-the-art devices with very accurate fuel requirements, particularly the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).
They're hard however they'll just take so much abuse. There's no warranty of it, but using a blend of approximately 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer season.
Otherwise utilizing requires either an expert SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a poor compromise. But blends do have a benefit in cold weather.
Similar to 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 fuel mixing and blends.