Lister Engine Forum

Alternative fuels => Other Fuels => Topic started by: buickanddeere on March 05, 2008, 05:00:50 PM

Title: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: buickanddeere on March 05, 2008, 05:00:50 PM
  I just received a quote for #6 fuel oil delivered and it's 2/3 the price of furnace oil........... #6 should burn just fine if handled like waste vegetable oil with pre-heating and 220F coolant temps?. Yes, no maybe?
Title: Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: buickanddeere on March 05, 2008, 08:01:27 PM
   Behind every restaurant in Ontario. There is a waste veggy oil tank.http://www.sanimax.com/products/restaurant_services.htm
 The restaurant owners are now paid a few bucks for their used oil.  Sanimax has 1st dibs on the wvo. Pumping wvo from their tank is theft. 
 In brief, there are no restaurants with over flowing oil barrels outback they have to pay to dispose of.
   WVO is only an option if you really know the owner or manager of a new resturant. Or you can negotiate the restaurant breaking their oil disposal contract. And you pay the restaurant  serious coin to haul the wvo away.
Title: Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: biobill on March 05, 2008, 11:33:01 PM
 Is #6 also known as bunker fuel?  IIRC, Guy Falks used to advocate it's use. At 2/3 the price, I suppose you could justify the added bother if you were running enough hours. Haven't heard of anyone using it on this forum. That makes you a pioneer ;D, Keep us informed.
 Re wvo, when I first started collecting, the restaurants in my area were paying between $58 and $80 a barrel to get rid of it. Times change          Bill
Title: Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: Doug on March 05, 2008, 11:38:29 PM
Its thick.

Its a solid in some cases on cool days.

Think roofing tar I'm not kidding......
Title: Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: Tom on March 05, 2008, 11:49:06 PM
IIRC it also contains more BTU per gal than #2. So depending how much extra energy it will take for preheating it may or may not be a better deal.
Title: Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: Doug on March 06, 2008, 12:13:56 AM
Yes more BTUs

Bunker oil is the stuff left over after all the lighter gas oils have been flashed off in the refinery.

I'm not sure what kind of additional refining or treatment is done after that. But its is black, and never comes off your clothes.

Think wire rope dressing....
Think open gear lubricant....

How much heat would you need to thin it for a diesel engine?

I needed a tiger torch just to get the stuff to flow out of steel kegs
Title: I burned bunker for heat!
Post by: rcavictim on March 06, 2008, 04:11:38 AM
I heated a large metal building on the windswept shore of the Great Slave Lake in the Western arctic for three years on bunker-C with various waste oil furnace technologies, culminating in a totally trouble free and reliable system that I engineered myself.  It burn`t with no visible smoke out of the chimney and no chimney or firebox deposits, but only after much R&D. It also ran well on used motor oil. Bunker-C is thick as Doug mentioned and is like solid wax in a drum rolled in off a cold outdoor storage dock in a Canadian winter.  The stuff I had was a black green color and contained a lot of sulfur and other stuff which I fear would quickly lead to injector coking issues if used in a small diesel engine, even with the necessary preheating.  As for injector heat, think ~400F.  My furnace design had an electric oven element folded back on itself for a foot long run of the stainless high pressure line that terminated at the injector nozzle. The fuel delivery pipe and heaters were wrapped in asbestos to keep the heat where it was needed.  The element was run a dull red color continuously!  The oil sprayed out of the regular 0.6 gallon per hour furnace nozzle just like room temp #2 heating oil and burst into clean flame easily with the electric ignition spark.  The fuel had to be heated, dewatered at just below the boiling temp of water and well filtered prior to injection in the furnace.  If any part of the flame was allowed to touch the inside wall of the burning chamber a very hard black mineral cone would grow there in the firebox.  The furnace outputed as much heat on bunker at 0.6 gal/hr as it would have with a conventional oil burner using #2 oil at the rate of 1.2 gal/hr.  There are a LOT of BTU`s in that black gold.
Title: must have been #4 fuel oil Re: #6 fuel oil vs. #2 diesel, price wow
Post by: buickanddeere on March 06, 2008, 04:24:41 AM
  This stuff must be some intermediate grade grade between #2 fuel oil and Bunker C? Maybe #3,4 or 5? This fuel oil is more like heavy motor oil. Yet some research states that Bunker C and #6 fuel oil is considered the same product by some? 
  I did mess a bit with Bunker C a few times at Petro Canada on South Down Road. It truly is  black, thick, smelly, sticky nasty stuff. Best used to make asphalt or used in the steam plant as boiler fuel. I wouldn't consider running a diesel engine on the muck. Maybe a boiler in dire circumstances only.