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

1. Use the oil simply as it is-- generally called SVO fuel (straight vegetable 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 very first two methods sound easiest, but, as so frequently in life, it's not rather that simple.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more viscous (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 blending veg-oil with petroleum diesel or kerosene (like # 1 diesel) you're still utilizing fossilfuel-- cleaner than many, however still not clean enough, lots of would say. Still, for every single gallon of

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

People utilize different mixes, varying from 10% veggie oil and 90% petro-diesel to 90% veggie oil and 10% petro-diesel. Some individuals simply utilize it that way, begin up and go, without pre-heating it (that makes veg-oil much thinner), or perhaps 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 a very tough and tolerant motor-- it will not like it however you probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.

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

Blends with different solvents and/or with unleaded fuel are "experimental at best", little or absolutely nothing is known about their impacts on the combustion attributes of the fuel or their long-term results on the engine.

Higher viscosity is not the only issue with using grease 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 motor are modern makers with very accurate fuel requirements, specifically the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

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

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

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