Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[SunWizard]

Many ask about burning WMO used motor oil and ATF automatic transmission fluid, and hydraulic fluid in their vehicles. It does work in warm weather and in low enough % blends. I don't like to do it for the following reasons:

The main problem is that ATF and motor oil don't burn cleanly. The auto-ignition temp is around 960F, and thats why it smokes easily. This also leads to deposits clogging injectors, carbon in heads, valves, turbo, etc.

The auto-ignition temp of diesel is 410F and is what diesel engines are designed around. WVO auto-ignition temp is around 600F.

In many places in the US and UK, to transport quantities above a few gallons, you need a hazardous materials transport license which is not easy to get. Storing large amounts at your home could also trigger silly government hazmat rules.

PAH polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are the main carcinogens in exhaust (from Diesel, gas, and WVO), and they are concentrated in motor oil.

UMO has been linked to skin, scrotal and lung cancer in humans. (I wonder if/how they got it on their scrotum?) MSDS here.
Benzene, Hydrazobenzene, lead, chromium, and cadmium, naphthalene, chlorinated hydrocarbons are carcinogens found in UMO in high concentrations.

Seventy-four percent of all WMO in the U.S. is burned in turbines, incinerators, power plants, cement kilns and manufacturing facilities. I will let them keep recycling mine since they have good ways to reduce the emissions and are monitored by the EPA.

Here is research done in canada comparing emissions of UMO burning for heaters (new and approved atomizing type) versus natural gas, it was huge amounts worse (100-1000x) in most categories:
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/11/10502.htm

California has completely banned all burning of UMO, even the highly regulated and far cleaner industrial uses, since they did research and found:
"The total emission of heavy metals from used oil fuel in 2002 was potentially on the same scale as the combined emissions from all of California's large stationary pollution sources, such as refineries and other manufacturing plants." Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040115074647.htm
"After adjusting for each metal's relative toxicity and adding the results together, the researchers compared the effects of untreated used oil as fuel to both re-refining and distillation. In both comparisons, the toxicity potential of untreated oil was 150 times greater for terrestrial ecosystems, and more than five times greater for humans. Zinc and cadmium posed the greatest threat to ecosystems; lead and chromium drove the human health effects."
They now sell all their UMO (except for re-refining) out of state/out of country, CA alone makes 100 million gallons UMO/year, and everyone pays an extra 16cents/gallon tax on new purchases to help pay for the recycling of it.

Here is another study done measuring emissions of new, atomizing type UMO heaters to Diesel:
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/catc/dir1/w_oilacr.pdf
It shows about 100x worse lead emissions, and worse on other heavy metals.

[240Volvo]

Thanks for posting this info, Sunwizard.

[SunWizard]

I just found this in my 1995 Dodge Cummins owners manual:

"Lube oil blending with the fuel is not permissable. Damage to the catalyst will result"

[David]

Following the interest sparked by the other recent threads on USing WMO, Yesterday I took the first step in giving WMO a go by filtering some to prepare it for use. First lesson learned as obvious as it is..... This is messy S hit!
Greater care is going to be needed when working with this as it is no where near as easy to clean up as Veg oil.

Having filtered about 10L, I put filled the tank on my little horizontal Chinese Diesel with about a 50% mix. I ran it a bit and warmed it up and made a few quick observations.

Firstly, the exhaust small goes from BBQ to car-with- shot-rings-or-valve guides aroma straight away.

When reving the engine, these things go into over fuel till the revs catch up and the throttle equalizes out. The smoke went from being all black to having a distinct touch of blue to it.
The overall smoke however seems much less.

The engine seems to like the mix and given the way it responds, I would think this may indicate the WMO has a bit more power in it than the Bio I was running it on previously. I can't test this on that particular engine just yet but I did get the feeling none the less.

My initial run proved nothing other than the engine will run quite happily on this mix and the differences in smell and smoke as noted above. First small steps that are encouraging for more testing.

[volumetric_efficiency]

could a centrifuge be useful in scrubbing some if not most of the undesirable compounds from UMO?

also i wanted to add that i read in another thread someplace (perhaps an .pdf that was issued) that the US EPA was allowing up to 7.5% use of
UMO in a blend.
the pickup crowd claim tremendous power gains from the higher BTU values found in UMO.
some say they use as much as 50%!!! they work their trucks hard though,
therefore what effect would high boost levels have on incinerating the toxic substances?

[SunWizard]

could a centrifuge be useful in scrubbing some if not most of the undesirable compounds from UMO?

The build up of carcinogens are not removed by a CF.

also i wanted to add that i read in another thread someplace (perhaps an .pdf that was issued) that the US EPA was allowing up to 7.5% use of
UMO in a blend.

I don't believe that without a link.

some say they use as much as 50%!!! they work their trucks hard though,
therefore what effect would high boost levels have on incinerating the toxic substances?

Boost doesn't affect it, but running hot helps lower the emissions to possibly 20x as bad instead of 100x as bad as D2.

[sbaker]

I don't believe that without a link.

You are wise to question what people say they read on the internet .

This EPA document says that you cannot blend motor oil with diesel in engines later than 2007 due to the new sulfur rules. I suppose you could infer that you could blend some amount in model years earlier than 2007. http://www.epa.gov/otaq/diesel/documents/420b06010.pdf

And, for whatever it's worth, this oil blending product advertises the same 7.5%: http://www.clarustechnologies.com/manufacturing_services/oilcat/

[WD8CDH]

could a centrifuge be useful in scrubbing some if not most of the undesirable compounds from UMO?

If you remove the heavy metals, you will remove their effect on the exhaust. But I have no clue as to the health hazards of the addatives that you probably can't remove.

[Johnh]

Since 2000 or so many large trucks burn all their own engine oil and have a top-up tank supplying oil at regular intervals to the motor
see http://venus.billgatliff.com/node/20 for one example from Cummins.

One quote I found interesting "Centinel also saves money and reduces environmental damage by eliminating the need to dispose of the used oil."

No mention of the dangers that may be incurred by burning the heavy metals and additives without further emmission controls.

Regards
John

[sbaker]

The rotary engine (used in the RX series of Mazda sports cars and some others in the past) burns oil by design. Not much, maybe a quart every 3000 miles or so for street use. The oil is from the crankcase, not a special reservoir.

[mixelpix]

100 million gallons of used motor oil gets exported annually? oh my good lordy... i had no idea it was that bad. and here i thought CA was a "green" state


thanks again for the forum, too!

[SunWizard]

100 million gallons of used motor oil gets exported annually?

That is the total WMO from Cali, I couldn't find figures on how much is recycled versus how much gets exported to other places.

[David]

I wonder how all this used oil would go if it were put in with the crude oil at the refining stage? Surely it can't be worse than the tar they start with but as far as I'm aware they don't do this so there must be a reason?

Maybe it's just that it's cheaper to use raw feedstock than mucking around with the used stuff as recycling in many materials isn't economical even if it makes sense on a lot of other fronts.

[zag]

If you filter WMO with a centrifuge, what do you do with the cake of toxic crap it leaves behind? Is there any safe & legal way to dispose of it?

Also, I have seen youtube videos of people re-refining wmo into diesel fuel, which IMO would work best. Just use a better condenser than the guy in the video so you're not releasing gobs of unburned hydrocarbons into the air like he was.

[John Galt]

I wonder how all this used oil would go if it were put in with the crude oil at the refining stage? Surely it can't be worse than the tar they start with but as far as I'm aware they don't do this so there must be a reason?

Maybe it's just that it's cheaper to use raw feedstock than mucking around with the used stuff as recycling in many materials isn't economical even if it makes sense on a lot of other fronts.

The Beauty of Re-refined Motor Oil
By Bob K. Jent
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Beauty-of ... &id=853345

As the earth's precious nonrenewable energy supplies reduce in size each year, it is important to look to new ways of conserving and preserving the known supplies today, so they may last as long as possible. One economically and environmentally conscious action all consumers can take is the purchase of re-refined motor oil for their personal vehicles, and to pressure localities to use re-refined petroleum products in their mass transit systems and commercial fleets.

Re-refined motor oil is motor oil that has been used by consumers, deposited at many filling stations and lube centers, and then recycled for reuse by the public. It has been cleansed of all the contaminants acquired by miles of use in a process called vacuum distillation. Hydro-treatment removes any additional unwanted chemicals, much like the way refineries remove base oil from naturally occurring crude. New additives are then added to make sure the re-refined oil adheres to all industry performance levels. Oil does not ever lose its intrinsic value as a lubricator and cooling agent; through many laboratory tests, chemists have arrived at the conclusion that re-refined oil performs and lasts just as long as virgin motor oil.

Many consumers worry that re-refined motor oil loses some of its lubricating or cold starting properties as compared to virgin motor oil. Major automakers such as Ford, GM, Daimer-Chrysler, and Mercedes Benz have conducted their own testing and stated that the use of re-refined motor oil is not only a viable option, but have also gone on record stating that the use of the product in no way violates or voids their manufacturer warranties on their engines. In fact, every new Mercedes Benz vehicle is pre-filled with re-refined motor oil straight from the assembly line!

North American transportation companies have used re-refined motor oil in their fleets for many years. The United States Post Office, for example has been using re-refined motor oil in all its 73,000 vehicles for over a decade. The City of Chicago has purchased and used re-refined oil in all its emergency vehicles (fire and police) since 1992. Not only has Snohomish County, Washington, used re-refined oil in its 1242 county vehicles, but the county has also contracted nearly 3000 independent oil analysis, concluding that the use of re-refined oil has in no way compromised vehicle performance versus virgin motor oil.

Using re-refined oil has the important duality of providing less need for foreign oil reserves to run the nation's millions of vehicles while also eliminating waste material and conserving new supplies for later use. Re-refined oil is, on average the same cost, or less than virgin motor oil. Same cost, eco-friendly, and high performance - all attributes that make re-refined motor oil a smart alternative.