Doug ;
  I'm not sure if wastewater/water polymer flocculants would work in oils since they're designed to be soluble in water not oils.  However they are other types that could be soluble in oil. 
  One way to think of these is:
A wastewater polymer flocculant is like a long spring, the contaminant particles get part of themselves wedged in the coils and after enough get snagged the particle will settle out.  Bentonite is a clay, like a chunk of of a porous rock.  Things tend to stick to it and then settle out.  This is why clays (and activated carbon) are really good at pulling out the stuff that makes you sick to your stomach, it pulls the junk(bacteria/poison) out of your stomach contents, isolates it,  and prevents it from affecting you.  There are other flocculants like Iron Chloride;  this one reacts with the contaminate to add an iron atom to the material which then is heavy enough to settle out. 
  The powder the guy was adding could be something that would attach to the water molecules in the hot oil and cause it to seperate out.  Calcium Oxide (burnt lime) will do this by chemically reacting with the water and then settling out (pulling particulates with it). 
  Three types of processes were used by us:
1) Physical trapping (polymer, bentonite).
2) Chemically trapping (hydrated lime).  Used in water plants.
3) Chemically reacting (burnt lime, Iron Chloride).

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  An old Florida Cracker farmer friend of my fathers runs a John Deere 2 lung diesel tractor.  He never changes the oil.  He changes the oil filter and tops up the oil religiously.  Whenever he cranks it up it will run for most of a full day.  The engine burns almost no oil, about the only loss is in the filter change.  He has done this for decades and has had no trouble with the engine.  The oil looks like black ink but doesn't seem to harm anything.  I would almost bet that the carbon is on the order of individual atoms.  Sorta like soot from a smoky fire. 

http://sporttruck.com/howto/p9431_image_large.jpg 
  I looked at this from suggestion by lev-l-lok and it looks like it might work.  Go to the right side of the picture.  In the bottom right corner is a plastic looking 90 degree bend, above that is what should be the silencer.  It has a look about it that is the same as our silencers. 

  We had various size Rootes type blowers at work and their intake bark could be worse than their exhaust bark without muffling.  They were outfitted with intake silencers that weren't all that different than the exhaust mufflers.  Since this type of blower is made in all kinds of sizes, say, 1-2 cfm to 1,000 -2,000 cfm a search should be able to turn up something that would work.  Also, since most automotive type superchargers are of that type  you might try a search for an automotive intake system, a junkyard would be a real good place to start.

  kltrider    Sounds great, I'll look into them, also others now that I have a place to start.  I'm thinking about setting some up in the back yard for storage and workshop.  I'll work on an online search for more places.  les

How do you like the shipping container for a gen shed.  Been thinking about getting one.  Used are pretty cheap.
Zeke

  I have been thinking of getting some of the containers to build a shop/storage area.  My problem right now is: Just how cheap is "cheap"?  I'm a good distance from a place to get some and am not able to get out and hunt right now.  Any info about price range would be appreciated. 

  My 2 cents.  I have also considered doing something similar with methane.  Essentially you would have a heavy ruggedly built engine that you would convert to a carbureted, spark ignition engine.  You could take advantage of the long term durability and high compression of the listeroid, just switch from compression ignition to spark ignition.  A DI head would be better than an IDI head.   Just substitute a spark plug for the injector and a timed ignition source for the IP.  Connect the governor linkage to the carb throttle.  With a carb the problems of no lube for an IP go away.  Also could use the IP cam to activate a trigger for the ignition, just need to provide some way to adjust timing.