Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[SunWizard]

I was given 100 gallons of out of date but unused fully hydrogenated SVO in 1 and 5 gallon buckets that is solid at room temps. It was from a good source for liquid SVO, so I took it to keep them happy even though I knew I it would be too hard to use it in my truck. So I devised a way to use this in my woodstove.

I took a 3 gallon stainless pot, drilled a hole and put a 1/4" NPT brass bulkead fitting in the bottom, attached a needle valve, and a 2' section of small diameter steel brake line. I drilled a hole in the back of the wood stove. I then ran the line inside the stove about 8" up from the floor.

I start a fire with wood. This heats up and liquefies the completely solid SVO in the pot within about 10 minutes. Then I open the needle valve and let the SVO slowly drip onto the burning wood. It makes one piece of wood last for a very long time >2 hours, and burn very hot and clean.

I set the next bucket of solid SVO next to the hot stove to partially liquefy it enough to dump it into the pot when its ready for more.

I like it enough I will next burn my dregs from the bottom of my settling barrels after I run out of the solid SVO.

It has an interesting smell outdoors if you get in the smoke stream, sort of like cooking french fries on a wood fire And its less smoky than wood by itself.

Its also less smoky than my other experiment of making a SVO pot burner were this same setup dripped into a stainless 6" diameter pot lid inverted supported with 4" bolts. This would burn SVO all day long without adding wood but made too much black smokiness.

(edit:) I am now using a new design that is giving me the cleanest, hottest flames yet. Lets call it a "ramp burner" Its making white hot flames, with a blowtorch sound, and it sometimes hurts your eyes to look at it (but I can't stop looking at it!), kind of like an acetylene torch at certain settings. I noticed in my 2 years of dripping VO onto wood that it worked best when it dripped on a flat topped split side of a log, that was sloped slightly towards the air inlet on the side. The VO would vaporize as it ran down the log, and the hot flames would run the opposite way up the log.

I took my 1.4 quart dog bowl, drilled 5 -1/2" close together holes in the side, halfway up the bowl closest to where the air inlet on my stove is. I set the bowl right on the ashes in the bottom of the woodstove. Then I made a 2" wide x 6" long ramp out of sheet metal, and bent it into a mild 5-10 degree V shape as a channel for the VO to run down. I bent 2 little feet that support it up from the bottom of the dog bowl, and it slopes slightly down towards the air inlet. The bottom end of the ramp is just below the air inlet holes. This makes the VO vaporize as it runs down the ramp, and the inlet air produces large 8" long white hot flames roaring up the ramp. Very little VO ever gets in the bowl, mainly during startup or when I change the flowrate. It appears to work best when I drip near the upper end of the ramp. When I drip near the middle it vaporizes so fast that some flying droplets explode off the ramp. See the pictures of it later in this thread.

[coachgeo]

Are you thinking of this as a replacement for your sawdust and oil logs in wax milk cartons?

[SunWizard]

I never did logs in milk cartons, I think that was John Galt's method, which he started a thread here for.

[Burbarian]

Sun, I agree with your observation. Lard burns clean when in a hot enclosed environment like a stove. In my gasifier experiments, standard downdraft gasifiers didn't burn hot enough and produced a lot of carbon deposits and smoke. At high heat however you get almost complete gasification with no smoke. I'm still trying to figure out a good liquid lard injection system for a fixed bed gasifier. The thing gets red hot.

[coachgeo]

I never did logs in milk cartons, I think that was John Galt's method, which he started a thread here for.

oops my bad was reading along and thought that was a JGalt post I was responding too.

My appologies.

[HoldOnTight]

I've found that keeping my oil soaked rags from cleanup in a metal bucket with a metal lid (plastic would also work, but not as fire=proof) and when winter comes along, I trow the oil soaked rags into the fully hot woodburning stove. The rag burns sort of like a candle and burns a long time too. It produces good heat and is smokeless in a hot stove.

I also had some oil soaked cardboard I put on the garage floor to catch the inevitable drips that sometimes occurs. After a year, the oil has thoroughly soaked some of the cardboard and rather that toss itin the trash, I roll it up and toss it in the woodburning stove. It really puts out some heat!!! and it lasts a long time as well.

So, then I had some dreggs and some extra cardboard. I had some time in the falll and so I rolled up the cardboard to form a log and stuck one end in the dreggs container. It soaked it up to a point. Don't roll the cardboard up too tight or it slows the absorption process. Then I flipped it about a week later so the other end would do the same. I set it aside and Presto, oiled "logs". Suggest not using dripping wet logs...drier is a little better. Put it in a hot stove and the log is a great way of getting all the benefits from all your oil. If the oiled log is dripping at all, it will drip more in the woodburning stove and if there arent any wood logs under it the drippings don't burn as well in the ash due to lack of air exposure. This leads to heavier than normal ashes and incomplete burning of oil. One other observation, the cardboard ashes seem crispy like potatoe chips, whereas the rags are just like the wood ash... I save my dregs now and keep it aside until fall for the woodburning stove.

[HoldOnTight]

I've noticed that pound for pound, oil has so much more heat capacity than does wood, easier to handle too!

[JohnO]

The oil and air must be really hot to burn oil efficiently. I use a drip system in my shop wood stove, and agree that it smells like frenchfries when it's working right, but is really bad when unbalanced air/fuel/temperature. Since I complain when my neighbor burns creosote-soaked RR ties and asphalt shingles, I'm compelled to provide a better example.

[SunWizard]

I was inspired by some good posts
in this thread to start testing a dog bowl heater. For 2 years I have been using a simple VO drip with a needle valve from a pot onto wood in my woodstove, described above. It was a simple change to add the bowl. I did this so I can burn more VO since I just was given 3000 gallons of new PHO, solid until 100F but perfect for this burner.

My stainless bowl is a 1.4 quart, and I drilled 16 1/8" holes about halfway up. Then I set it into a cookie tin, and drilled a 2" hole in one side where the combustion air comes in below the bowl. The amount of air from below is adjustable by one damper on the side of the stove. This allows most of the combustion air to come in from below, and I didn't rig up any blowing down from the top. Its interesting to watch since the flames appear to shoot out mostly from the air holes, almost looking like a burner on a gas stove, only more yellow/orange with flames 6-12" tall. It burns clean and steady, and has a wide range of adjustment available, I have only run it 1 day so far but will report back with long term results.

[coachgeo]

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/ ... 4541084781

You've probably seen this already but just in case.

His last version (page 11) is a small scale dog bowl type

[SunWizard]

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/4541084781
You've probably seen this already but just in case.
His last version (page 11) is a small scale dog bowl type

Yes thats the same thread that I linked in my above post where I linked directly to page 11.

[coachgeo]

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/4541084781
You've probably seen this already but just in case.
His last version (page 11) is a small scale dog bowl type

Yes thats the same thread that I linked in my above post where I linked directly to page 11.

LOL. sorry Im in a rush. Making me put my foot in my mouth rather often lately.

[mixelpix]

I do something similar w/WVO. I pour it in with wooddust from my chainsaw and leaf mulch and cardboard and make my own 'logs'. I'll also just pour it in my woodstove every so often when the fire dies down or I get cold, but it doesn't get much colder here than 10F two months a year (so far!) and I am in the lowland forrest hills far far away from people.

I also have found that my dogs love the stuff on ANYTHING. Especially chew toys. They do not care at all for SVO.

Sometimes I dunk kindling in a WVO tub, but that usually gets the dogs riled up...

[SunWizard]

I ran for 3 days on the 1.4qt bowl, and made a new one to test with a 2 qt, 8" diameter bowl, and put 12 1/8" holes lower in the bowl, about 1/2" up from the bottom. This burns better than my other one with 16 holes. This could be due to a 1" larger bowl diameter, but I think lower holes is better since there are more flames lower inside the bowl to heat it up. This may be the effect you get by providing all air from above, it forces the flames down into the bowl, but most of my air is from below.

I think the best number of holes needed (and airflow) is determined by the burn rate. If I have a small-medium rate (6-18" flame height), then less holes is better since it gets higher velocity air through them and makes more yellow flames and more blowtorch sound. When some of the holes have no flame fingers, the air rate seems below optimum, since it makes more soot, probably due to that part of the bowl cooling.

So it may be best to have different bowls for low rate and high rate and swap them for different outdoor temps when you need a higher rate. This will be my next testing. I started with low number of holes, since its always easier to add them than subtract them.

[SunWizard]

I am now testing a new design that is giving me the cleanest, hottest flames yet. Lets call it a "ramp burner" Its making white hot flames, with a blowtorch sound, and it sometimes hurts your eyes to look at it (but I can't stop looking at it!), kind of like an acetylene torch at certain settings. I noticed in my 2 years of dripping VO onto wood that it worked best when it dripped on a flat topped split side of a log, that was sloped slightly towards the air inlet on the side. The VO would vaporize as it ran down the log, and the hot flames would run the opposite way up the log.

I took my 1.4 quart dog bowl, drilled 5 -1/2" close together holes in the side, halfway up the bowl closest to where the air inlet on my stove is. I set the bowl right on the ashes in the bottom of the woodstove. Then I made a 2" wide x 6" long ramp out of sheet metal, and bent it into a mild 5-10 degree V shape as a channel for the VO to run down. I bent 2 little feet that support it up from the bottom of the dog bowl, and it slopes slightly down towards the air inlet. The bottom end of the ramp is just below the air inlet holes. This makes the VO vaporize as it runs down the ramp, and the inlet air produces large 8" long white hot flames roaring up the ramp. Very little VO ever gets in the bowl, mainly during startup or when I change the flowrate. It appears to work best when I drip near the upper end of the ramp. When I drip near the middle it vaporizes so fast that some flying droplets explode off the ramp. Much more experimenting with this design to come...