Known as biodiesel, homemade diesel is typically made from cooking oil mixed with other common household ingredients (which nine.com.au has chosen not to name).
A string of social media videos from Aussies claiming to have made DIY biodiesel have started circulating online, promising it’s an alternative to $3 per litre diesel.
Adjunct Professor Richard Brown from Queensland University of Technology’s Faculty of Engineering confirmed it was possible to make biodiesel at home, but said the average Aussie probably shouldn’t try it.
“The recipe is pretty simple and the ingredients, they’re just things you can buy at the shop,” he told nine.com.au.
“But there are a number of traps along the way, both for your own health while making it and also potential damage to the car.”
Some of the ingredients that can be used to make biodiesel at home are dangerous and can cause damage to the skin and eyes.
If accidentally ingested, they can cause major and lasting internal damage.
One ingredient has even “killed a lot of people”, Brown revealed.
Homemade biodiesel can also do significant damage to modern vehicles’ sophisticated emission treatment systems.
“There’s a few dangers, and getting it exactly right is not completely simple,” Brown said.
He urged everyday Aussies trying to lessen the sting of the fuel crisis to consider driving their cars less rather than trying to cook up their own DIY biodiesel in the back shed.
Because while some educated farmers can and do make the stuff, it’s not the kind of skill you can learn from a TikTok video.
Australia’s biofuel industry is growing and could offer motorists around the country a more environmentally friendly fuel source in the future.
It already has the ability to produce up to 110 million litres of biofuel per year.
Currently most of the raw products used in biofuel production are exported overseas because it’s too expensive to make here.
The biofuel industry is pressuring the government to help fund more domestic production in the future.
In the meantime, it’s best to leave cooking up biofuel to the professionals.
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