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

1. Use the oil just as it is-- usually 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 gasoline;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first two methods sound simplest, however, as so often in life, it's not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is far more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to reduce 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 (exact same as # 1 diesel) you're still using fossilfuel-- cleaner than many, however still not clean enough, many would say. Still, for each gallon of

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

People utilize numerous blends, varying from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that way, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or even use pure vegetable 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 really tough and tolerant motor-- it will not like it however you probably will not eliminate it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.

To do it appropriately you'll need 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 need for the blends.

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

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing grease 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 developed.

Diesel motor are modern devices with really precise fuel requirements, particularly the more modern-day, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

They're hard but they'll just take a lot abuse. There's no warranty 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 season.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel needs either an expert SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are typically a poor compromise. But blends do have a benefit in winter.

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