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

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

2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or mix it with a solvent, or with fuel;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first two methods sound easiest, but, as so often in life, it's not quite that simple.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to lower the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more easily 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 using fossilfuel-- cleaner than a lot of, however still not tidy enough, numerous would state. Still, for each gallon of

vegetable oil you use, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel saved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

People utilize different mixes, varying from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% veggie oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some people just use it that method, begin up and go, without pre-heating it (which 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 an extremely hard and tolerant motor-- it will not like it but you most likely won't kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.

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 requirement for the blends.

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are "experimental at best", little or nothing is learnt about their impacts on the combustion qualities of the fuel or their long-lasting effects on the engine.

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

Diesel engines are modern machines with extremely precise fuel requirements, especially 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 mix of approximately 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer.

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

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