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

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

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 two methods sound most convenient, however, as so typically in life, it's not rather that simple.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or mixing 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 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, numerous would say. Still, for every single gallon of

grease you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.

People use various blends, varying from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some people simply utilize it that method, 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 might 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 kill it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.

To do it appropriately you'll require 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 mixes.

Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "experimental at finest", little or absolutely nothing is understood about their results on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-term impacts 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 characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are created.

Diesel engines are state-of-the-art makers with very exact fuel requirements, specifically the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They are difficult but they'll only take a lot abuse. There's no warranty of it, but using a mix of up to 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, particularly in summer season.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO service or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are normally a bad compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in winter.

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