Chezzie;750467 wrote: you can in fact run diesel engines on peanut oil and vegetable oil. "And I bet the exhaust fumes smell of donuts!"
Vegetable oil can be used as diesel fuel just as it is, without being converted to biodiesel.
The downside is that straight vegetable oil (SVO) is much more viscous (thicker) than conventional diesel fuel or biodiesel, and it doesn't burn the same in the engine -- many studies have found that it can damage engines.
BUT it can be done properly and safely -- IF you get a professional engine conversion. (See below.)
There are other approaches, here are the main ones:
Just put it in and go.
Mix it with diesel fuel or kerosene then just put it in and go.
Blend it with an organic solvent additive or with what some companies call "our secret ingredient that we'll tell you about if you pay us" (several versions) or with up to 20% gasoline (petrol), just put it in and go.
The only way to use veg-oil is in a properly installed two-tank system where the oil is pre-heated and you start up and shut down on diesel fuel (or biodiesel).
We've never had much time for Nos. 1 to 3 (more below), and we've had a two-tank SVO kit for a couple of years that pre-heats the oil and switches the fuel, but we never used it. They do work, but we just didn't think it solved the problem very well, and the more we learnt about it the more we didn't think so. (More about two-tank SVO systems.)
Along with many others, especially in Europe, we think pre-heating the oil is still not enough to ensure that it will combust properly inside the engine. It needs a complete system including specially made injector nozzles and glow plugs optimised for veg-oil, such as the professional single-tank SVO kits from Germany. Then you really can just put it in and go.
In March 2005 we installed a single-tank SVO system from Elsbett Technologie in our TownAce (1990 Toyota TownAce 1.9-litre 4-cyl turbo-diesel 4x4 van). The kit includes modified injector nozzles, stronger glow plugs, dual fuel heating, temperature controls and parallel fuel filters, and it does just what it claims to do.
There's no waiting or switching fuels from one to the other, just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. It starts easily and runs cleanly from the start, even at sub-freezing temperatures. It can use SVO or biodiesel or petro-diesel or any combination of the three.
The professional single-tank SVO kits are the only SVO kits we recommend. Read on and we'll tell you why. We'll tell you about the other available options too.
See: Single-tank SVO systems.
See: Journey to Forever's Elsbett SVO system.
SVO basics
Alphabet soup
SVO - straight vegetable oil used as diesel fuel (usually new oil, fresh, uncooked)
PPO - pure plant oils, same as SVO: PPO is the term most often used in Europe
WVO - waste vegetable oil (used cooking oil, "grease", fryer oil, probably including animal fats or fish oils from the cooking)
UCO - used cooking oil (what we called it in the first place until everyone started calling it WVO, even if it wasn't necessarily all vegetable)
IDI - Indirect Injection diesel engines: the fuel is injected into a pre-chamber or swirl-chamber before going on to the combustion chamber. Pre-chamber engines are more tolerant of SVO than swirl-chamber engines.
DI - Direct Injection diesel engines: the fuel is injected straight into the combustion chamber. DI diesels are less tolerant of SVO than IDI engines (see The TDI-SVO controversy). Types of DI diesels:
TDI - Turbo Direct Injection
CDI or CRD - Common-rail Direct Injection
PDI or PD - Pumpe Düse Unit Injection (Direct Injection, each injector has its own pump)
The choice
The basic choice for running diesels on biofuels:
make biodiesel and just use it, no need to convert the engine, or
convert the engine so you can run it on SVO -- no need to process the fuel.
It's not quite that simple. For instance, if you want to use waste vegetable oil, which is often free, you're going to have to process it anyway, though less so than to make biodiesel. And it still might not be very good fuel.
More on the choice between biodiesel and SVO.
One of the great advantages of biodiesel is that it will run in any diesel engine. The same claim has been made for two-tank SVO fuel systems: "Ready-to-install kit that will allow you to run any diesel on waste vegetable oil." Also in any weather.
Is it true? Maybe, but for how long?
In cold weather vegetable oil crystallises, forming solid wax crystals that can quickly block the fuel filters. One solution to the all-weather problem with two-tank kits is to change the filter in winter, using a 30-micron filter instead of the standard 10-micron filter (or less), so the wax crystals just go straight through without blocking the filter and melt in the injection pump, allegedly without causing any stress or damage.
Also going straight through into the injection pump however will be any solid particles of between 10 and 30 microns that the specified standard filter would have stopped.
Would you do it?
Vendor's claim:
"The Racor filter that comes with the Greasel kit filters down to 28 microns. If the oil being used is dirty, the Racor will do its job and protect your pump and injectors."
Comment from a diesel injection workshop:
"I wouldn’t do it. They put that original 5-10 micron rating on there for a reason."
Comment from injection pump manufacturer Stanadyne:
"We do not recommend using the 30 micron as the final filter at any time. As the final filter, that micron rating will cause problems with the injection equipment in terms of wear/injector plugging, etc. We recommend using the Fuel Manager 5 Micron element (there are many lengths to choose from) as the final filter. If the system is 'common rail' then we recommend using the Fuel Manager 2 Micron."
It's your choice.
Diesel engines last a long time, half a million miles or more is not unusual, and there are not many thorough, long-term studies of the effects of using straight vegetable oil in diesel engines. What is clear is that "any diesel" is an exaggeration.
Some diesel engines are more suitable than others.
Some vegetable oils are better than others.
Some injection pumps work better than others.
Some SVO kits are better than others.
Some computerised fuel systems don't like vegetable oil at all.
There are doubts about using waste vegetable oil.
There are doubts about using straight vegetable oil in DI (Direct Injection) diesels.
more info from
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
You are one smart cookie when it comes to veggie oil fuel! I don't know what to comprehend first. Is this the way to go, this kind of fuel?
E