Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[123eddie]

I read all the cold upflow posts on John Galts system and built the Ron Schroeder heated upflow system. I like both systems because of the similarities to a septic system. My thoughts were that after reading Ron's posts, you need controlled heat and no convection. In the beginning I probably heated my oil to much and was on my way to making paint. Now that my input of oil has increased the oil based paint smell has disappeared. I keep the oil heated to 120 degrees. Is this a good temperature Ron?

[WD8CDH]

Hi Eddie,

120 should be just fine. Depending on the thruput and oil, you could go lower. I am currently running 100F in the tank and very sloppy regulated 120F on the filter housing. The filter housing doesn't need even or very regulated heat, just as long as it is nearly as warm or warmer than the settling tank.

Remember, if you want to also remove the fats, just precede the warm upflow tank with a cold upflow tank. You can get a lot more flow thru a cold upflow tank if you are only removing fats than you can get if you are trying to remove water too.

[123eddie]

Thanks Ron'

I lowered my temperature to 100 degrees. So far my finished oil passes the hot pan test. I opened my drain valve at the bottom of my heated tank after processing roughly 200 gallons and was surprised that about a gallon looked like it contained water and the rest looked like it was ready to burn. This is after 5 months use and my supply has been steadily picking up to where I will be cleaning 30 gallons a week.

[WD8CDH]

Just keep testing at the highest rate that you will be processing until you have run about 20% more gallons than the settling tank size to make sure that the lower temperature will keep up.

Also, if you pick up your oil hot, make sure that it cools off to equal or slightly below the upflow settling tank temperature before you pour it in.

[123eddie]

Thanks again Ron, I'll watch the oil at the new temperature. When I first built this heated upflow from your previous posts I felt that eventually I would end up with a centrifuge. Now I'm convinced that this works. My heated steel 55 gal empties into an unheated up flow 55 gallon that will eventually empty into an other. The one big mistake I made was after building my system I read somewhere on this site that steel drums that are not painted inside will react with wvo. I opened the top of my second drum and sure enough there was micro bb's at each high tide level. This residue appears to happen at the level where the oil meets air. When I get a chance I'm planning on cleaning and painting approximately 1 foot below high mark to see if this helps. At this point I have no plans on doing anything else, this system really works.

[SunWizard]

roughly 200 gallons and was surprised that about a gallon looked like it contained water and the rest looked like it was ready to burn.

You can't tell by looking if its dewatered.

[123eddie]

Sun you are right I was observing the reverse of a cubie where the watery oil is at the bottom. My bottom drain started off milky and then looked good after about a gallon. I expected more water to have settled out into the bottom of the drum when I drained it. I will pan test various levels in the future to see. Also the more I learn perhaps a test kit is in the future.

[WD8CDH]

roughly 200 gallons and was surprised that about a gallon looked like it contained water and the rest looked like it was ready to burn.

You can't tell by looking if its dewatered.

Very true, you can tell how much has been removed but not how much is left.

It's a good indication of how much water is in your source long term.

[suki1987]

I make sure the oil going in is not warmer than the oil in the upflow barrel.