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

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first 2 approaches sound easiest, however, as so frequently in life, it's not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is far more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to lower 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 (same as # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than most, but still unclean enough, lots of would state. Still, for each gallon of

veggie oil you utilize, that's one gallon of fossil-fuel conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

People use numerous blends, ranging from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just use it that method, begin up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), and even utilize 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 an extremely 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 need what amounts to an SVO system with fuel pre-heating anyhow, 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 effects on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-term effects on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only problem with using veggie oil as fuel. Veg-oil has different chemical residential or commercial properties and combustion characteristics from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are created.

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

They are difficult however they'll only take so much abuse. There's no guarantee of it, however utilizing a blend of up to 20% veg-oil of excellent quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer.

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

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