Make Your Own Biodiesel Part 1
There are at least three methods to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing 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-- normally 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 first two methods sound most convenient, but, as so typically in life, it's not quite that easy.
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 flows more easily through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.
If you're mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (very same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than the majority of, however still unclean enough, numerous would say. Still, for every gallon of
veggie oil you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.
People utilize numerous mixes, from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), and even use 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 a really hard and tolerant motor-- it won't like it but you probably will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.
To do it properly you'll need what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyway, 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 various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "experimental at finest", little or nothing is learnt about their impacts on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only problem with utilizing vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are created.
Diesel motor are state-of-the-art devices with extremely accurate fuel requirements, particularly the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).
They're tough however they'll only take so much abuse. There's no assurance of it, however utilizing a mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically in summer.
Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO solution or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a bad compromise. But blends do have an advantage in cold weather.
Just like biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel combined with straight grease lowers the temperature at which it begins to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel mixing and blends.
