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

1. Use the oil just as it is-- generally 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 two methods sound simplest, however, as so frequently in life, it's not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to lower 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 (same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than a lot of, but still not clean enough, numerous would state. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People utilize various mixes, ranging from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps 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 will not like it however you most likely won't eliminate it. Otherwise, it's not wise.

To do it effectively you'll require 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 mixes.

Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded gas are "speculative at finest", little or absolutely nothing is understood about their effects on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-term impacts on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing veggie oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are designed.

Diesel motor are high-tech devices with very accurate fuel requirements, especially the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They're difficult but they'll only take a lot abuse. There's no guarantee of it, however utilizing a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer season.

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are generally a bad compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in winter.

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