Biodiesel
As the use of alternate fuels progress, a source of energy known as biodiesel is becoming increasingly popular. Biodiesel is a fuel equivalent to petrodiesel with the exception of its derivation from biological sources. Biodiesel can be used daily in diesel-engines without any modifications to the existing engine. Biodeisel is made up from vegetable oil, however; biodiesel is slightly different from ordinary vegetable oil due to its lower viscosity levels. Biodiesel is environmentally friendly as it is biodegradable, non-toxic, and burns with much lower emissions than petro diesel. Much attention has been focused on the thought of biodiesel replacing fossil fuels as the world’s primary transport energy source. Biodiesel is a light to dark yellow liquid consisting of a high boiling point at low vapor pressure and is nearly immiscible with water.
There are three main ways to use biodiesel in a modern diesel engine. The biodiesel that is used comes from vegetable oil, animal fats or a combination of both. One can either mix vegetable oil with another fuel, such as straight vegetable oil (SVO), or convert it to biodiesel. All three choices use both fresh and used oils.
The first choice, mixing of the vegetable oil and other fuels sounds easy but it is not so. The purpose of mixing it is to lower the viscosity of the oil to make it thinner and allow it to flow more freely through the fuel system. The combination of mixing it varies from mix to mix depending on how much fossil fuel one wants to save. Regardless of the combination used, most diesel engines will need a SVO system with fuel pre-heating capability. This will allow for the vegetable oil to thin out and allow for better flow. Despite the advantage of less fossil fuel used, most diesel engines have precise fuel requirements that may not be met by the mixes.
Besides mixing it, vegetable oil can be used straight with an SVO system. To do this, one would have to take a single-tank SVO system and replace the injectors, glow plugs and add fuel heating. One can also use a two tank SVO system allowing for the oil to pre-heat to make it thinner. With this system, the vehicle starts and stops using regular diesel and then switches to the SVO when it is hot enough.
The third choice is to convert it to biodiesel. Besides just being able to buy biodiesel, there are several recipes available to use to make your own. When doing this, it is recommended that you use safety precautions as most of the chemicals needed are dangerous.
When comparing the biodiesel and SVO, the biodiesel has several clear advantages. The first is that is works in most engines without any conversions or modifications. The cold weather properties of pure biodiesel are also better then the pure SVO properties. The only major disadvantage of biodiesel is the cost when compared to pure SVO. Despite the disadvantages, most people as well as countries are planning on using some form of biodeisel in that it is becoming cheaper then most fossil fuels and it helps to clean the environment.
Process of creating biodiesel (above)