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

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

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first two methods sound simplest, however, as so typically in life, it's not rather that easy.

1. Mixing it

Grease is far more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to reduce 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 using fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, but still unclean enough, lots of would state. Still, for each gallon of

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

People use various mixes, ranging from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease 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), and even use pure grease 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 difficult and tolerant motor-- it will not like it however you most likely will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.

To do it appropriately you'll require what totals up to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyway, preferably utilizing pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no need for the blends.

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded gas are "experimental at finest", little or nothing is understood about their impacts on the combustion qualities 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 various chemical homes and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel engines and their fuel systems are created.

Diesel engines are modern makers with extremely accurate fuel requirements, specifically the more modern, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They are difficult however they'll just take a lot abuse. There's no guarantee of it, but using a blend of approximately 20% of excellent quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.

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

Just like biodiesel, some kerosene or winterised petro-diesel fuel blended with straight grease lowers the temperature level at which it starts to gel. (See Using biodiesel in winter season) More about fuel blending and blends.