Fuel oil filter / pump

[Anorak_ian]

Hi guys, I'm looking for the impossible.

A small, portable powered (12 volt?) oil filter system to clear used veg oil and turn it in to usable fuel.

Any ideas?

[coachgeo]

ahhhhh..... the holy grail.

Not been found yet!!!

Closest is Dieselcraft's centrifuge set ups and collapsable buckets. BUTTT.... oil must be heated and moved via high pressure for it is not a true "centrifuge". It is more of a hybrid. It in part removes molecular mixed water (for lack of better terms) via flash evaporation via the units jets, while the spin of the unit removes junk and suspended water.

see

http://www.burnveg.com/centrifuge-2.htm

I have been contemplating designs for a more portable unit using a dieselcraft like units for YEARS. Read thru the material then we can start up a discussion on this. I could go on for days.

BTW- IMHO Burnveg is the best site to read and discuss WVO fueling. Been a moderator there for years.

[Anorak_ian]

Hi thanks for the reply. How about a clearing agent, (I used to brew a lot of beer) like gelatine crystals?

[coachgeo]

Hi thanks for the reply. How about a clearing agent, (I used to brew a lot of beer) like gelatine crystals?

Been attempted by many. There are companies that sell such a gizmo to resturants to extend the life of their oil for cooking before having to dump it. For fuel use it has not seemed to work. Does not remove enough water. The issue is not as much suspended water as it is the microdroplets.

This issue with water causing damage to diesel engines (cavitation pitting and other corrosive damage) is well known and doccumented. In the case of WVO this water also takes on any acids in the oil adding additional corrosive issues. Also means Diesel water removing filters are less effective. Basically water remove gizmo's, no matter how spendy or successfull they are with diesel fuel; have been rather ineffective for removing water from waste oils.

For example the dieselcraft suggested above is under other names used to filter diesel engine LUBE OIL. You install it into the engines oil system and the engines own oil pump provides the needed pressure to make it work.

[coachgeo]

for long distance travel your best bet is either do the ol' cooking pot method or a more complicated onboard filtering system.

Ol' cooking pot- filter, cooking pots and a fire. This is the orginal method of cleaning WVO. You do it at night for a few hours before heading off to bed. (filter, boil out water, then filter again) This will be most compact system to carry.

More complex would be an onboard system. Such as a small motorcycle trailer with dieselcraft like system installed on board. Still it is a when your parked filtering system. Little more complicated to design one to do while traveling.... but... may be possible. This is what I've been brainstorming on. The difficult part is figuring out how to expell the water vapor jetted out of the Dieselcraft in a manner that it does not mix back into the filtered oil. Also a bit complicated timing on shut down as the thing spins down, it can introduce the collected suspended water from the bowl back into the filtered oil since there is no centrifical forces to keep it in the bowl.

[Stuart]

Sounds like you wanna attempt a cyclonic separator like the I'm working on for my exhaust They can be used to sort a lot things

[coachgeo]

Sounds like you wanna attempt a cyclonic separator like the I'm working on for my exhaust They can be used to sort a lot things

liquid cyclonic seperator... there are such beast of sorts see RCI diesel fuel filters though they are more splash-n-seperate along with some cylonic features and gravity. Takes pretty high pressure to make them work. Some other commercial cyclinic liquid "seperators" are out there for mega mulla and rather large

[sbrumby]

Ian are you looking for 12V so you can put used veg oil in the tank and filter it while you are running? Probably possible but maybe not practical. I have a bit of knowledge on filtering oil. Filtering oil is all about getting rid of junk, particles that are not oil. Screens that remove big bits are no good for small bits. Screens that remove small bits are no good at big bits (blocks quickly). So a series of screens works best big to small. Quite a few years ago they were showing a system on TV of a mini (car) fitted with a scavenge pump,high pressure coupled to a filter can that had inside a bog roll , oil forced through the bog roll and back into the sump. It was claimed the oil never needed to be changed only topped up and filter changed.
Dont know what hapened to it, probably neved caught on as filters are cheap and oil was. It aint now.

[Anorak_ian]

Hi Sam, I didn't really have any preference to on or off bike filtering, just as long as it was portable.
Of course, I forgot about separating the water from the oil.

An interesting thought about an onboard system.

It makes me think of a couple of long tanks in front of the bike, and an electric motor or engine belt driven pump, passing the oil through a mesh box before the filter.
If the bike engine was water cooled maybe a hot water pipe could be used to heat the oil in the two tanks and evaporate the water from it. Thinking about it, the tanks could have an electric heater set up in it maybe. Or both.
And when the rider arrives at his destination, he checks the oil and if it's ok pumps it in to his fuel tank.

The real down side of all this is, if the bike were a long distance machine with a large fuel tank, with it's processing plant it would be damn heavy and hard to handle.
And a lot of room taken up for personal items like a tent Ah, just a thought.

[sbrumby]

Oil and water have very different weights. So just oil and water mixed in a tank , after a day or so if the tap at the bottom is opened the first thing to come out is the water. If you are thinking about chip shop oil it is the solids that are not oil and not water that is the problem but quite a simple filter system will sort this. If you were thinking of doing this in a shed and using this in a motorcycle I would think in a short time you woud have more than you could use.

[coachgeo]

Oil and water have very different weights. So just oil and water mixed in a tank , after a day or so if the tap at the bottom is opened the first thing to come out is the water....

In theory.... but we all know in reality..... often it is no dice.

1. water (fluid) is also in the oil in micro drops (in my other post called it molecular mixed water ) that are mixed in their attached to oil molecules via several things; one micro being surface tension. Again these are not PURE water and can be little acid or a base hint to it putting + and - charges into the equation. This water (fluid) does NOT settle out as shown by the now long standarded hot pan test used to evaluate if filtered/dewatered WVO is dry enough to for sure too NOT cause engine damage over long use. There are some engines that do not give a shiat about molecular sized water... Older MB engines seems to be one. NO CLUE about any of the industrial diesels esp. the small 1,2 or 3cyl ones are as veg loving at the crud loving ol MB's.

2. This is not a sitting on the shelf settling system..... the bike is moving, sloshing and vibrating the oil..... this increases dramatically the time it takes to settle even suspended water or if it will even settle at all.

[Anorak_ian]

Yes it has to be portable, I'm thinking of people (campsites etc) that would donate there old cooking oil (not to mention scrounging) on route to mumbo jumbo land.

Do you think that 12volt heaters would get rid of the micro droplets after a 200 mile ride? Or would heaters take a real long time to work?

I know this is a piece of string question but, roughly how long would it be before the rider noticed any problems due to micro droplets? A few months of continuous hard use?

[Sphere]

Water in fuel will cause pitting of the cylinder and heating veg oil will increase germ problems. I think making a portable solution without a barrel sized trailer like Mouse has will prove difficult. Perhaps buy a small China diesel and put it on a trailer for filtering

[coachgeo]

... I think making a portable solution without a barrel sized trailer like Mouse has will prove difficult....

disagree sorta. Modern centrifuge type; maybe! Not so for the old style of a cook pot, collapsible buckets and sock filters that could be stored rather compactly in comparison. Would be a one stop shop oil collection set up most likely though unless one can come up with temporary saddle tanks to add oil to till you stop for a long enough time (dinner time?) to prepare the oil for the next day.