There are at least 3 methods to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are used with both fresh and secondhand oils.
1. Use the oil simply as it is-- generally called SVO fuel (straight veggie oil);
2. Mix it with kerosene (paraffin) or petroleum diesel fuel, or with biodiesel, or blend it with a solvent, or with fuel;
The very first 2 approaches sound simplest, however, as so typically in life, it's not quite that simple.
1. Mixing it
Grease is far more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of mixing it or mixing it with other fuels is to decrease the viscosity to make it thinner so that it streams more freely 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 single gallon of
veggie oil you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, and that much less climate-changing carbon in the atmosphere.
People utilize numerous mixes, ranging from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% veggie oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that method, begin up 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 may 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 will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not wise.
To do it properly 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 need for the mixes.
Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded gas are "speculative at finest", little or nothing is learnt 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 vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical properties and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.
Diesel engines are high-tech makers with extremely precise fuel requirements, specifically the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).
They're difficult however they'll just take so much abuse. There's no warranty of it, but using a blend of up to 20% veg-oil of good quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, specifically 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 cold weather.
As with biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight grease lowers the temperature at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter) More about fuel mixing and blends.
