There are at least three ways to run a diesel motor on biofuel using vegetable oils, animal fats or both. All 3 are used with both fresh and pre-owned oils.

1. Use the oil simply as it is-- usually 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 fuel;

3. Convert it to biodiesel.

The first 2 techniques sound most convenient, but, as so often in life, it's not rather that basic.

1. Mixing it

Grease is a lot more viscous (thicker) than either petro-diesel or biodiesel. The function of mixing it or blending it with other fuels is to lower 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 the majority of, but still not clean enough, lots of would say. 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 .

People use different blends, ranging from 10% grease and 90% petro-diesel to 90% veggie oil 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 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 tough and tolerant motor-- it won't like it however you probably will not kill it. Otherwise, it's not smart.

To do it appropriately you'll need what totals up 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 various solvents and/or with unleaded gasoline are "speculative at finest", little or absolutely nothing is learnt about their results on the combustion characteristics of the fuel or their long-lasting impacts on the engine.

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

Diesel engines are high-tech machines with extremely accurate fuel requirements, particularly the more contemporary, cleaner-burning diesels (see The TDI-SVO debate).

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

Otherwise utilizing veg-oil fuel needs either a professional SVO option or biodiesel. Mixes and blends are usually a bad compromise. But blends do have a benefit in cold weather condition.

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