Vegetable oil fuel

Vegetable oil can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engines and in heating oil burners. When vegetable oil is used directly as a fuel, in either modified or unmodified equipment, it is referred to as straight vegetable oil (SVO) or pure plant oil (PPO). Conventional diesel engines can be modified to help ensure that the viscosity of the vegetable oil is low enough to allow proper atomization of the fuel. This prevents incomplete combustion, which would damage the engine by causing a build-up of carbon. Straight vegetable oil can also be blended with conventional diesel or processed into biodiesel or bioliquids for use under a wider range of conditions.

History

Rudolf Diesel was the father of the engine which bears his name. His first attempts were to design an engine to run on coal dust, but later designed his engine to run on vegetable oil. The idea, he hoped, would make his engines more attractive to farmers having a source of fuel readily available. In a 1912 presentation to the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers, he cited a number of efforts in this area and remarked, "The fact that fat oils from vegetable sources can be used may seem insignificant today, but such oils may perhaps become in course of time of the same importance as some natural mineral oils and the tar products are now."

Vegetable oil

A vegetable oil is a triglyceride extracted from a plant. Such oils have been part of human culture for millennia. The term "vegetable oil" can be narrowly defined as referring only to plant oils that are liquid at room temperature, or broadly defined without regard to a substance's state of matter at a given temperature. For this reason, vegetable oils that are solid at room temperature are sometimes called vegetable fats. Vegetable oils are composed of triglycerides, as contrasted with waxes which lack glycerin in their structure. Although many plant parts may yield oil, in commercial practice, oil is extracted primarily from seeds.

On food packaging, the term "vegetable oil" is often used in ingredients lists instead of specifying the exact plant being used, especially when the oil used is less desirable to the consumer or if a mix is used.

Uses of triglyceride vegetable oil

Oils extracted from plants have been used since ancient times and in many cultures. As an example, in a 4,000-year-old kitchen unearthed in Indiana's Charlestown State Park, archaeologist Bob McCullough of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne found evidence that natives used large slabs of rock to crush hickory nuts, then boiled them in water to extract the oil.Archaeological evidence shows that olives were turned into olive oil by 6000 BC and 4500 BC in present-day Israel.

Yellow grease

Yellow grease, also termed used cooking oil (UCO), used vegetable oil (UVO), recycled vegetable oil, or waste vegetable oil (WVO) is recovered from businesses and industry that use the oil for cooking.

It is used to feed livestock, and to manufacture soap, make-up, clothes, rubber, and detergents. Due to competition from these other industrial sectors, the EIA estimates that less than a third of yellow grease could be spared for biodiesel production annually.

It is distinct from brown grease; yellow grease is typically used frying oils from deep fryers, whereas brown grease is sourced from grease interceptors.

Other uses of the term

Yellow grease can also refer to lower-quality grades of tallow (cow or sheep fat) from animal rendering plants.

The term has been in use for some time. A source from 1896 describes it as follows: "Yellow grease is made by packers. All the refuse materials of the packing houses go into the yellow grease tank, together with any hogs which may die on the packers' hands."