Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil or animal fat and is biodegradable. Biodiesel is made through a process called transesterification. This process makes vegetable oil and animal fat into esterified oil, which can be used as diesel fuel, or mixed with regular diesel fuel. Gas stations are selling biodiesel with pumps marked as B5, B20 or B100, where the letter “B” indicates it’s Biodiesel and the number indicates the percentage of Biodiesel mixed with regular Diesel. Pure Biodiesel is referred to as B100.

Any Diesel engine can run on Biodiesel. Though any type of vegetable oil or animal fat can be used to make biodiesel, soybean and rapeseed oil are the most popular types. Many biodiesel fans collect used oil from restaurants to make biodiesel at home. The emissions
from Biodiesel are lower than regular diesel and it’s biodegradable if spilled.

continue reading "Biodiesel for beginners/Biodiesel 101"

Do you have left over vegetable cooking oil at home in your fryer? How about using that to run your car? That is exactly what some diesel car owners are doing across the country. There are two options for running your diesel car on vegetable oil. One is to convert the car to consume regular vegetable or fryer oil. The other is to use bio fuel in the car without conversion. Converting an older model Ford or Mercedes Diesel car to use vegetable oil as fuel is simple and can be done with conversion kits being sold on the Internet. The cost of the conversion kits starts at a few hundred dollars and goes up.

continue reading "Run your car on vegetable oil"