Waste Vegetable Oil as Fuel

Waste vegetable oil is nothing but the used vegetable oil or cooking oil found in almost every kitchen. Many of the people throw out this used vegetable oil as they think it’s of no use. But do you know that this used vegetable oil or waste vegetable oil can be used as a fuel?

Yes, it’s true. The waste vegetable oil when recycled can be used as a fuel in the engine. Waste vegetable oils work best in diesel engines like diesel generators or diesel cars. The reason of using waste vegetable oil as fuel is that it has more advantages over petroleum diesel.

Vegetable Oil Fuel Conversion

Before using in diesel engines, waste vegetable oil has to undergo a fuel conversion. This can be achieved in two ways.

The first way is to filter the waste vegetable oil before using it as a fuel. The fuel conversion process requires an additional fuel tank, a heat source for heating the oil and a filter for filtering the oil. Waste vegetable oil has to be filtered as it contains many food particles. It has a relatively high viscosity compared to petrol diesel and is too thick to work in the engine and therefore requires to be heated before the use.

The second way of fuel conversion is to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel. This converted biodiesel can be used directly in diesel engines without further modifications. The conversion of waste vegetable oil into biodiesel is a very simple process, which can be carried out in a biodiesel factory.

This conversion can also be carried out at home but requires a proper care and caution. This is because some materials used for this conversion are poisonous, caustic and inflammable.

Advantages of using Waste Vegetable Oil as Fuel

There are many advantages associated with the use of waste vegetable oil as fuel. The first thing is that it is free of cost and is easily available in the kitchen. Secondly it produces fewer green house emissions like carbon dioxide and sulfur and thus reduces pollution to some extent.

The vegetable oil fuel conversion is a very cheap process and produces less dangerous emissions as compared to a diesel engine. And after the fuel conversion, there is tremendous decrease in production of emissions.

The conversion of waste vegetable oil into biodiesel is a bit expensive process than the above one but has many other advantages. The use of biodiesel contributes to reduction of many air toxic pollutants like dust, particles, carbon monoxide and sulfur oxide. It doesn’t require any special storage and is safer to handle as compared to petroleum diesel.

There are many factors that contribute to the efficiency of the fuel. The type and quality of the vegetable oil used, the systems used for filtering and heating, the maintenance of the systems used and the proper use of the systems are some of the factors that contribute. Efficiency of the fuel also depends upon the people developing this system. Whether or not they have a complete knowledge of how the system works.

So now it’s up to you whether to use waste vegetable oil as fuel or to throw out it. But I personally recommend using it as fuel due to the various advantages that it has over the petroleum diesel. Also, by using waste vegetable oil as fuel you may contribute a little in preventing global warming.