Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[david p]

I've set up a cold-upflow setup similar to John Grants. The upflow settling is the same, I just filter it using whole house water filter housings. I filter it with a 20, 10, 5, and 1 micron cartridge. The oil has come out looking nice and clean. I tested the oil for water using the weigh, heat, weigh method. It failed, with about .24% water. So, I purchased a drum heater and wrapped my metal drum in that shiny insulation designed for hot water heaters. I heated the oil to 125 F and then let it cool. Then, tested for water again, and it still had the same amount of water. So, I heated it to 150 F and kept it there for two days. Still has the same amount of water. So, I stumped on how to get the water out. Here are my ideas for what might work:

- Keep it heated for longer...maybe a week. Then let it settle.
- Heat it to a lower temp, to avoid convection currents, and hold for longer. Then let it settle.
- By some quick 'n dri and put it in the filter housing that the oil passes through.
- Keep it heated all the time (this sounds expensive though).

Any feedback?

Here's some questions I've got:

It's been raining here for the last week. My drum has the lid on though. Will the humidity in the air get into the oil in the barrel?

Somewhere on this forum John or someone else had some links to a discussion about people's results from testing quick 'n dri. can someone point me to that again? I can't find it.

Thanks.

David

[david p]

The second link about Quick n Dri is broken.

My question is about how to get the water out, not how to test if it has too much water. I'm not sure I understand why you're saying to use the Hot Pan Test.

[John Galt]

Look at the bottom of page 1 for Quik&Dri information

Confirm the moisture test results with the HotPanTest

How much oil per day is added to the upflow barrel?

If the upflow barrel is heated it will mix the water back into the oil

any heating should be in the 2nd or 3rd barrels for cold upflow

[David]

Many people can't get oil perfectly dry with settling alone.
I have trouble getting my head around how all the dissolved water in a drum will drop to the bottom and that some will not stay suspended even if the bulk of water is drained from the bottom of the drum. It is said that upflow works best ( only?) in cold conditions so if you are anywhere temperate, I would not expect oil that will pass a HPT from this process.

Many people say they can achieve this, I have tried and cannot. I set up a drying system that allows me to positively dry my oil in all conditions in a set time frame and do it with complete reliability.

Settling, be it upflow or otherwise will reduce the amount of water in the oil if left long enough and if you can't get the oil perfectly dry, it will certainly be easier to dry with other methods and also make filtering any particles, fats or other rubbish much easier as well.

I don't know about the method of checking water content you are using but I believe the HPT will only indicate water above a certain level and it therefore a guide more than anything definative as to water level.
Perhaps the test you are using is able to detect water below what the HPT can and that is why you can still see an amount of water in your oil. I would certainly go with the more accurate test if you have the facility to perform it.

You may find it easier to set up a drying system to finish off the oil than to try drying it with settling alone.

[SunWizard]

I'm not sure I understand why you're saying to use the Hot Pan Test.

The hot pan test is much faster, easier, and more accurate than the weigh method. And it will detect a lower amount of water in the VO.

I also could never get enough water removed with settling, no matter the temperature or amount of time I gave it, even after many months.

[WD8CDH]

You must have almost zero convection currents for settling of any kind to work much with suspended water. Also introducing oil into a upflow settling tank that is warmer than the rest of the oil in the tank will stir up the water.

To heat a tank with minimal convection currents to allow settling while the tank is heated requires almost the entire surface of the tank to be heated, not just a 6 or 10 inch wide band. I use at least 60 feet of roof and gutter ice melt cable with the turns evenly space to heat my upflow settling tank. I also use a PID controller programed in the PWM mode to reduce thermal fluxuations.

The higher in temperature that you heat the settling drum, the faster the suspended water will settle out (if your convection currents are low enough) but unfortunatly, higher temperatures allows some of the suspended water to be dissolved in the oil and won't settle out. For that reason, I heat my settling drum to just above the cloud point of the fat and PHO in the oil.

I use only a single settling drum and add from 5 to 15 gallons of oil a day. I do not pre settle in the cubies. My initial filtering is an aluminum window screen. My oil usually tests well below 300ppm water by Karl Fischer titration method and rarely any bubbles on the HPT.

[John Galt]

Assuming a 55 gallon upflow settling tank, I would suggest much less than 10 GPH, especially if you are adding more than 5 gallons at a time. Too high of a flow rate will stir up what has already settled and prevent what is in the process of settling from settling properly.

5 gallons in about an hour is usually OK if only done once or twice a day but any more should be restricted to take about 12 hours to flow in.

If your tank and filter are sealed, the restriction of the filter might control the flow rate to reasonable values. On my system, I only restrict the flow when the filter is almost new.

The slower the flow, the better, as long as it makes it thru by the time that you need to dump the next batch of raw oil in.

For larger amounts at a time, I would suggest plumbing multiple settling drums in parallel rather than in series fed from a common "huge funnel" and feeding thru a common filter. This way, the flow rate in inches per hour would be minimized. You need to keep the restriction in the plumbing thru each leg similar to share the flow equally thru each settling tank.

Ron Schroeder
WD8CDH

[kirkharrod]

Also, if any of your hoses are exposed to sunlight, and they have any air in them, you will get condensation. I found that out when my tarp got moved a bit, allowing sunlight to hit a poly hose.

[John Galt]

http://www.frybrid.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14853
http://www.frybrid.com/forum/attachment ... 1257485233

Example of cold upflow settling by threeacefong
Good photo

[John Galt]

15/06/11

[stratrider]

I wanted to say thanks to John Galt for what seems to be the most affordable filtration setup I have seen yet. I am in the process of setting up the system (http://cjmcbeth.com/blog) and have gotten a good start. I am keeping a running log of how the filtration setup and conversion is going for anyone who would like to check it out. So far I am still very early in the process, but have started collecting and filtering at this point.

[John Galt]

Update 04/12

The very best UVO I collect is upflow cleaned and dried and mixed with BioDiesel chemically converted from the lower quality UVO. The amount of diesel / kerosene / petrol or jetB mixed with it varies with temperature.

It runs in a single tank Toyota 3.4L TDI engine with a FPHE fuel heater before the OEM fuel filter. Everything else is stock except for the usual plug-in preheating for vehicles north of 60. It's been running this mix for about 5 years with no complaints even at thirty below and no more maintenance than using straight petro-diesel.

I mix the clean dry VO from the upflow barrel with kerosene or diesel and biodiesel in the 30 gal barrel, then pump the mix through the 5µ filter into the truck. It's important that the 30 gal mix barrel stays outside in the cold. Any fats or hydrogenated oils that would block the fuel intake screen in the tank will settle to the bottom of the barrel in the cold and will be filtered out. In the summer they automatically melt back into the mix and flow OK.


It's important that the fuel mix is dryer than 500ppm water. I constructed a carbide manometer to measure the water content of the fuel mix.

http://make-biodiesel.org/Quality-Testi ... in-vo.html

about1031.html


If the mix doesn't test dry I pump it through a cartridge column containing water absorbing polymer and back into the mix barrel till it's dry.

http://www.b100supply.com/quick-n-dri
http://www.fryertofuel.com/
http://www.homebiodieselkits.com/quikndri.html

the product is also available as
http://www.watercrystals.com/
http://www.watersorb.com/
http://watergelcrystals.com/

A 5 gal water jug with a wide hole in the bottom makes a good filter/dryer/funnel. The standard bag filters fit perfectly or you can make a good bag filter out of the backs of old jeans legs. A universal water filter cartridge from a Cdn Superstore holds the dryer polymer and fits tightly in the neck of the jug. It takes about an hour for the 5 gal of mix to flow through the dryer column/filter funnel. As any water is absorbed the polymer swells to a jell [like cooked tapioca] and slows then stops the flow. When it takes more than a couple of hours to run through I know it's time to change the cartridge of polymer. I use a small 1/10hp 115v transfer pump to circulate the mix from about a foot off the bottom of the 30 gal barrel to the filter/funnel or into other barrels for storage. The dryer/filter/funnel is described below.

When I'm using petrol, jetB or other aromatic/combustible solvent I add it directly to the vehicle tank first then add the VO-BD-ULSD fuel mix. I prefer not having petrol in the mix barrel because of hazardous/harmful vapors. The unheated fuel processing shed is also well away from buildings.

Watch exhaust on cold start-up, it shouldn't smoke for more than half a minute at the most. If it's smoking then harmful engine deposits are forming in the rings. Adjust the amount of petro additives to keep exhaust smoke to a minimum.