There are at least three ways to run a diesel motor on biofuel utilizing veggie oils, animal fats or both. All three are utilized with both fresh and secondhand oils.

1. Use the oil just as it is-- normally 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 gas;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first 2 approaches sound most convenient, however, as so frequently in life, it's not quite that easy.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is far more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function 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 (same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, however still unclean enough, lots of would say. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People utilize various blends, varying from 10% vegetable oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% grease and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just use it that method, 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 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 but you most likely won't kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.

To do it properly you'll need what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyway, ideally using pure petro-diesel or biodiesel for starts and stops. (See next.) In which case there's no need for the mixes.

Blends with various solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are "speculative at best", little or absolutely nothing is learnt about their results on the combustion qualities 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 residential or commercial properties and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are designed.

Diesel motor are modern machines with extremely accurate fuel requirements, especially the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO controversy).

They are difficult but they'll only take so much abuse. There's no warranty of it, however utilizing a mix of up to 20% veg-oil of great quality is stated to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summertime.

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

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