BioDiesel Handling Guidelines
This document is a guide for those who blend, distribute, and use biodiesel and biodiesel blends. It is intended to help fleets and individual users, blenders, distributors, and those involved in related activities understand procedures for handling and using biodiesel fuels. We hope it will be a useful tool, both when planning biodiesel use and as an ongoing resource.
Biodiesel is a renewable fuel manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, and recycled cooking oils. Biodiesel offers many advantages:
- It is renewable.
- It is energy efficient.
- It displaces petroleum derived diesel fuel.
- It can be used in most diesel equipment with no or only minor modifications.
- It can reduce global warming gas emissions.
- It can reduce tailpipe emissions, including air toxics.
- It is nontoxic, biodegradable, and suitable for sensitive environments.
- It is made in the United States from either agricultural or recycled resources.
- It can be easy to use if you follow these guidelines.
Biodiesel can be used in several different ways. You can use 1% to 2% biodiesel as a lubricity additive, which could be especially important for ultra low sulfur diesel fuels (ULSD, less than 15 ppm sulfur), which may have poor lubricating properties. You can blend 20% biodiesel with 80% diesel fuel (B20) for use in most applications that use diesel fuel. You can even use it in its pure form (B100) if you take proper precautions.
The word biodiesel in this report refers to the pure fuel”B100”that meets the specific biodiesel definition and standards approved by ASTM International. A number following the œB indicates the percentage of biodiesel in a gallon of fuel, where the remainder of the gallon can be No. 1 or No. 2 diesel, kerosene, jet A, JP8, heating oil, or any other distillate fuel.1
Today, B20 is the most common biodiesel blend in the United States because it balances property differences with conventional diesel, performance, emission benefits, and costs. B20 is also the minimum blend level allowed for Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) compliance. B20 can be used in equipment designed to use diesel fuel. Equipment that can use B20 includes compression-ignition (CI) engines, fuel oil and heating oil boilers, and turbines.
Higher blend levels, such as B50 or B100, require special handling and fuel management and may require equipment modifications such as the use of heaters or changing seals and gaskets that come in contact with the fuel to those compatible with high blends of biodiesel. The level of special care needed largely depends on the engine and vehicle manufacturer. High blend levels are not recommended for the first-time biodiesel consumer.
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