Is Golden Fuel Systems Biodiesel? What is the difference?

There are two ways that you can run this higher viscosity fuel in your diesel engine, both ways have to do with reducing the viscosity of the veggie oil.

One way to do it would be to make Biodiesel, a chemical process called transesterfication, where you mix methanol and lye with veggie oil to separate out the glycerin. This thins out the oil to a viscosity similar to diesel. The other way to do it, and the one that makes most sense to us, is to thin out the oil with a parallel auxiliary fuel system, using the waste heat the engine is already producing.

Every one has put a pot of oil on the stove to cook something, and what happens when the oil is heated? It gets runny, thin, or in other words the viscosity is lowered. This is the approach that we use.

The benefits of Straight Veggie oil, SVO, over biodiesel is that once the conversion is done there is no reoccurring cost, besides regular maintenance. Just put in filtered waste veggie oil that is free from restaurants. With Biodiesel, every gallon you make costs money. Even the most conservative estimates are about $.75 per gallon. There is also the issue of the disposal of the by-product which is about 20 to 25% volume of the batch of biodiesel. I am not saying that biodiesel is bad, it just doesn’t make sense for most people.

Posted in: Fuel System FAQ, General Questions