Lister Engine Forum
Alternative fuels => Waste Vegetable Oil => Topic started by: NoSpark on November 09, 2008, 02:25:08 PM
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Whats the best way to wash WVO? Is it necessary? Could you do the same to WMO?
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We bio-diesel makers use washing processes but as far as i'm aware WVO would not get washed, just filtered to probably 5 microns at least, and if you do cold filtering you will end up with a more reliable fuel.
Steve
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I get my WVO from a major food store once a week while its still hot. Ive been prefiltering through old bed sheets and it looks pretty good, still amber. The problem is that they dump the oil into Cake Frosting buckets that haven't totally been cleaned. I'm lucky to get it this way. Would there be a problem with dissolved frosting or a lot of sugar in the oil? Was wondering if washing would take it out if it was a problem.
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Would there be a problem with dissolved frosting or a lot of sugar in the oil?
I'd think water washing, well agitated, should remove all the sugar. 1 should be enough, but 2 passes would be plenty.
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Instead of asking what is the best way to wash I should have asked "how do I wash" I have an idea but in all of my research I find partial explanations. If someone could explain or give me a link that would be great! Is it as simple as misting the top of the oil and draining out the bottom? Lets say I wanted to start off with a 5 gallon bucket if possible.
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as for the sugar issue,,
why not clean up some buckets to provide the source with,, tell them you will take their old iceing buckets if that is
an issue for them.
bob g
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The real trick comes in drying ... best bet is to heat up the oil and run a small pump to spray the oil into the air back onto itself.
Some say cetrifuging is a perfectly good way to remove water. Much less heat and no latent heat involved, so much less overall energy required. And it takes our particulates at the same time.
Regards, RAB
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My physical setup does not allow me to catch the water from the centrifuge as it slowes down.
:( :( Oh dear :( :(
Regards, RAB
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A centrifuge would be nice but that's got to wait. I'll have to see if they'll reuse their old buckets in exchange when I pickup the oil. There could be a "sanitary" problem. I'll just have to see what I can rig up. Wish I could have started this project 5 months ago. Its about 35F outside and the ground will be covered with snow soon, which complicates things a bit. Whats the worst that could happen if I blended this stuff with diesel(unwashed) but started and stopped on diesel?
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What I meant to say is, if can get them to use their old buckets(no frosting!) and I get the oil burning hot. The frosting stuff I can deal with at a later time, I'm picking some up tonight. The bed sheet aren't the only prefiltering I plan on doing. Jens, you've been helpful, I'm just learning, and I realize that if I can't do it somewhat right I just won't do it.
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Whats the worst that could happen if I blended this stuff with diesel(unwashed) but started and stopped on diesel?
... that you need a new engine.
It is one thing to hope that your oil is not contaminated but to use oil that is known to contain sugar seems real silly to me. Let's see ... you probably will have some moisture of some kind in the oil and it is very likely that some of the sugar will dissolve in the oil. It will then pass through all your filtering and likely show up in the end product. If it crystallizes in the injector pump due somehow to the high pressures, you will score the pump and will need to replace it which isn't cheap. Let's say by some stroke of luck it gets to the cylinder. As it goes into the cylinder whatever water was there evaporates and the sugar crystallizes in the process. Chances are it will eventually make it's way onto the cylinder walls and into the rings and your engine will seize up in no time flat.
All of this is a guess on my part but since it's a known fact that gasoline engines get killed real quick with sugar I think I am safe with my guess. It might take a lot longer but it will happen eventually. It's really not worth the try unless you have an old beater and you need a good excuse to tell your wife that you need a new vehicle (honey, the engine seized up and it will cost too much to fix - looks like we will need to buy a new car/truck)
May I point out that blending in winter is not really a good idea unless you live someplace warm ? Now if you heat your blended fuel before it gets the pump or filter and then heated the injector lines, outside temperature would be irrelevant as long as you waited with the switch to the blend until everything is warm.
No matter how you slice things, you need to filter better than the bed sheets you talked about. I happen to use bed sheets as well but only as a pre-filter type of deal.
BTW, blending to 15% or so is ok in the summer but if you want to go higher than that you really need to heat your fuel.
I would suggest that a bit more research is in order.
Jens
Hallo Jens,
I just read your old posting and it would scare hell out of me if I hadn't burned WVO for years in roids and in our Passat and Opel TD (softturbos idi)
The oil comes straight from all kind of bars, restaurants and hotel kitchens around here and inn summer, I mostly only let it decant for a month or two an use it straight away in the roids and filter it thru a 2 my felt for the cars.Then I boil (150 °C ) the rest and filter it after some cooling.
Yes, winter is a problem since I do not separate the fats well enough but sugar has never been one.
What happens to sugar in a burning oil spray in the prechamber and in a hot engine ?
I had once a seized pump on a 6/1 after months of uncautious leaving old unfiltered frying oil in it over the summer and part of the winter, but some WD 40 and light taps with a tool resolved that.
Can I only have been lucky over all these years ?
Rolf
Yes I
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Regarding sugar in the fuel tank.....
Not sure if any of you guys saw it, but on "Myth Busters" they tested if the old legend of sugar in the fuel tank can cause any damage.
First they poured sugar directly into the tank and drove the car for a while. No symptoms
Then they poured a LOT of sugar in the tank. Still no symptoms.
So, they let it sit overnight, and still no symptoms.
Apparently, it can clog the fuel tank pickup screen, but it does not dissolve very well in Gasoline or Diesel fuel (not sure about WVO).
FYI,
Veggie
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I saw it.... But I still dont want any in my tank....
Rob
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I saw that Myth Busters, I believe they also put bleach in the fuel tank on that episode also, did a number on the bottom of that tank too! Anyways, a couple of years ago I was asked to install a Greasecar kit on a VW. The install/user manual focused mostly on heating, filtering and purging the lines with diesel and nothing about washing, salt, sugar, water, centrifuges ect. just straight out of the grease bin through a filter or filters and into the WVO tank. So if I thought that burning WVO was "plug-n-play" that's why. Also, heating the WVO stopped at the fuel filter, so getting the WVO to 99c at the injector didn't seem to be to important, at that time anyway.
;D I finally ran the roid on WVO (with some RUG added) and I must say it was a cool feeling indeed 8).
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Interesting. I have never considered pestering a food store for used oil but I guess some of them do deep fry stuff for the deli ... got to look into that!
The stuff I get is a very dark brown, almost black :(
If I were in your shoes I would first try to see if I could supply them with clean buckets to use and if that didn't work I would definitively wash the oil and yes, it will (IMHO) remove all manner of crud. I do my oil in approx 40 gallon batches so it is well worthwhile. I don't know if doing small batches would get tedious or not.
Jens are you checking ph adding methanol and caustic soda to remove glicerin from oil what i make is a light amber have engine that will start on the stuff at 22 degrees out side no glow plugs or ether . i do wash my oil after glicerin seperates i use aquarium pump to circulate water through oil. JD
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AT TDIclub forum, there is a thread about WVO filtering. This guy filters it like your supposed to, but adds 5 cups of baking soda to 45 gallons in a conical tank.
He then siphons the finished product off the top, and then drains the fat and gunk from the bottom of the conical tank. He has done this for 122,000miles on a 05 Jetta tdi and the engine is clean as a whistle inside.
I always thought that getting the glycerine and other impurities out meant having to use lye and methanol?!
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I own a 05 TDI jetta. The injection system is not suited to veg oil...
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DD, he is probably using the baking soda in the final wash to neutralize any remaining lye.
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To wash and filter WVO is exactly that, cleaning it up to burn straight. When you start using chemicals like methanol and lye to remove the glycerine you're making BIODIESEL. Seems some people may be confusing the two.
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running a wvo boiler to heat the house. tried water filtering last summer found that spraying water on top of the oil was the best ..if you stir it up too much you get white crap that need to be unloaded in to the neighbors yard.
seems the water loves to grab onto glycerin and settle .
boiler in on youtube veggie boiler