Can it be used as a fuel for diesel engines?
The answer is ‘yes’, but we have to be careful not to use it in the wrong way otherwise engine damage may occur. There are two schools of thought, both of which seem to work well. The first is to blend vegetable oil in with diesel or kerosene up to a ratio of about 20%, depending on what extra additives are used and what the ambient temperature is. The additive is used to compensate for the loss in ignition properties and to help keep the combustion cylinder parts clean. The second school of thought is to use a two tank system where the vehicle is started up on a thin, highly combustible fuel such as fossil diesel and then switched over to a second tank when the engine is nice and hot. Biodiesel is a third alternative and can be found blended with diesel at 5% in some petrol stations. Biodiesel is the scientifically approved derivitive of vegetable oil and is a relatively highly processed product which has a much lower viscosity than straight vegetable oil. Vegetable oil works much bet
