Hey guys,
My less than 1c's worth....
I cold fuge my oils, granted they're WMO, slightly thinned with waste mineral turps, mainly fuge'ing to remove solids and water. The turps originates from a chainsaw wash bay, full of sand, metal filings, water, dust and goodness knows what. The WMO is from various backyard sources, mystery oil, gearbox, sump, diff, grease, dead kittens and puppies included.... This oil goes mostly to my burners these days, but I wouldn't hesitate to run it through the listers in an emergency...
Home made Hi-G fuge, single pass, low flow rate (its a tiny little fuge with the cup being less than 100dia and 100high...
The oils, on exit, are cold, the housing of the fuge barely warm... The air pressure in the fuge is slightly below atmospheric... During spinning of very wet oils and waterlogged diesel, I set the feed flow rate to just borderline water vapour expulsion.... This is not hot steam, but cold mist that emanates - I have some theories as to why, but no substantiated proof as such. At this flow rate, the spun product leaves the unit with little to no water content. But, it is a slow process... My targets for fuel production are but 3 to 4times my consumption... Meaning that I have a scaled down micro version that outputs about 10-20L per hour, depending on contaminant levels... (This is sludge we're talking about here...)
On polishing diesel or other liquids without heavy contamination, I could up the throughput substantially, as I have done in the past.... (Less than a 1% water/contamination level by volume)... The output product is significantly cleaner than store bought fresh diesel when viewed under a microscope.
As to energy usage - 100 to 150W, a little more when the scavenge pump kicks in, easily supplied by a small inverter/toy solar setup during daytime, load on a genset for night operation during emergency is more than tolerable as I use a VFD to control the fuge with soft start/stop... So, after a whole lot of rambling, NO, its not "heated steam" but a cold mist, keep the g's high enough and the flow within the limits of the cup, and you don't need to heat the input product either..... Well, not me, anyway.... But then I do everything arse backwards.... LOL....
Cheerz
Ed