Make your own Biodiesel Part 1
There are at least 3 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 vegetable oil);
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 2 approaches sound most convenient, however, as so often in life, it's not rather that simple.
1. Mixing it
Grease is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or blending it with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams 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 utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, but still unclean enough, numerous would state. Still, for every gallon of
veggie oil you use, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.
People utilize various mixes, ranging from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps 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 tough and tolerant motor-- it won't like it however you probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.
To do it effectively you'll need what amounts 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 blends.
Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gas are "speculative at finest", little or nothing is learnt about their results on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-term impacts on the engine.
Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing grease as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion qualities from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.
Diesel engines are high-tech devices with extremely exact fuel requirements, specifically the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).
They are difficult however they'll just take so much abuse. There's no guarantee of it, however utilizing a blend of as much as 20% veg-oil of good quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer.
Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a poor compromise. But blends do have a benefit in winter.
As with biodiesel, some kerosene or 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.