What is biodiesel fuel?
Biodiesel is a clean burning, non-petroleum-based diesel fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fat. Though it’s not made from or with petroleum diesel, it can be mixed at any percentage to create a more cost-effective biodiesel blend.

It’s make by transesterification (conversion) and is composed of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids, is called B100 in its pure form, and is approved for use in America.

This bio-fuel also comes in various blends, the percentage of biodiesel being the number in the name (i.e., B5 is 5% biodiesel in regular diesel fuel; B20 is 20% biodiesel.) The most common blends are B5, B20 and B100

How biodiesel began
G. Chavanne of the University of Brussels in Belgium was granted a patent in 1937 for a “Procedure for the transformation of vegetable oils as fuels…” and appears to be the first account of making what we know as biodiesel today.

Using biodiesel in your diesel vehicle
Biodiesel is to diesel fuel as ethanol is to unleaded gasoline. You can use biodiesel if your car, truck or SUV runs on diesel fuel without any problems. However, biodiesel acts as a type of cleaning agent in your car, and may release deposits in your vehicle’s fuel filter, tank walls and pipes from previous diesel usage. Just check your fuel filter more frequently when you begin using biodiesel

Biodiesel Pros and Cons
Pros:

Cons:

*While many sources say using biodiesel decreases the amount of harmful car emissions contributing to global warming, the Consumer Energy Council of America stated that biodiesel releases the same amount of hydrocarbon emissions when burned as regular diesel.

Resources:
www.feueleconomy.gov, “Biodiesel”
Wikipedia, English, “Biodiesel”
Biodiesel.org, “Commonly Asked Questions”