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

1. Use the oil just as it is-- typically called SVO fuel (straight vegetable oil);

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

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The very first two approaches sound easiest, however, as so typically in life, it's not quite that basic.

1. Mixing it

Vegetable oil is a lot more thick (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The purpose of blending it or blending it with other fuels is to reduce the viscosity to make it thinner so that it flows more easily through the fuel system into the combustion chamber.

If you're mixing veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (very same as # 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 conserved, which much less climate-changing carbon in the environment.

People use different blends, varying from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% vegetable oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals just use it that method, launch and go, without pre-heating it (which makes veg-oil much thinner), or even utilize pure veggie 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 an extremely difficult and tolerant motor-- it will not like it however you most likely won't eliminate it. Otherwise, it's not sensible.

To do it correctly you'll require 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 blends.

Blends with numerous solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are "experimental at best", little or absolutely nothing is learnt about their effects on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-lasting results on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with utilizing vegetable oil as fuel. Veg-oil has various chemical homes and combustion attributes from the petroleum diesel fuel for which diesel motor and their fuel systems are developed.

Diesel engines are modern machines with very exact fuel requirements, specifically the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

They are difficult but they'll just take so much abuse. There's no assurance of it, but using a mix of as much as 20% veg-oil of great quality is said to be safe enough for older diesels, especially in summer.

Otherwise using veg-oil fuel requires either a professional SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a poor compromise. But mixes do have a benefit in winter.

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