Sump Oil as Fuel

malazn mafia · 25-07-2011, 10:00 PM

Hi, is there any particular model of Diesel Generator that will take Sump Oil as fuel, or is there some method of filtering/converting Sump Oil into a useable fuel? cheers. With all these cheap 'biodiesel' compatible generators on the market, I would like to experiment with taking the house off the grid altogether, with grid as last resort backup.

2011G6E · 25-07-2011, 10:07 PM

Big difference between biodiesel and sump oil...

Sump oil is heavily contaminated with all sorts of additives and other sludges and carbons. You would have to do an awful lot of filtering and quality control to get it to something you would want to run in an engine without smoking out the neighbourhood.

Some guys out here do biodiesel for thier cars...old chip oil from fish and chip shops and the like...and it too is a lengthy process and has to be done exactly right. One guy here thought he knew better and changed a couple of the additives (something to do with the naptha and another one, can't remember which), and blew up one diesel in his car, and then damaged the second replacement engine as well.

It's not as easy as most people think...biodiesel can be done, but it's not as simple as "strain it and use it"...

malazn mafia · 25-07-2011, 10:11 PM

What about a heater that uses sump oil? I remember seeing it somewhere on the forums a while ago, but can't remember where..

mik · 25-07-2011, 11:10 PM

i had a mate that strained the sump oil out of his old cummins diesel and added it to the fuel a bit at a time, i would`nt do it to mine though.

schmidty · 26-07-2011, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mik

i had a mate that strained the sump oil out of his old cummins diesel and added it to the fuel a bit at a time, i would`nt do it to mine though.

I was asking to a bloke today who was telling me the transport company he used to drive for was doing this with their waste oil. To cut costs, instead of paying to have the oil taken away, they heat it and inject it into their big diesel tanks at a rate of about 1000L of oil to 75,000L of diesel. Reckons the diesel looks like ribena. Ha.

vanman_75 · 26-07-2011, 02:56 AM

Some diesel engines in our big diggers have oil burn tech which burns off a little and replaces a little from a reservoir..sorry dont lnow anything about oil to fuel conversions

chevypower · 26-07-2011, 03:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

What about a heater that uses sump oil? I remember seeing it somewhere on the forums a while ago, but can't remember where..

http://cleanburn.com/

new2ford · 26-07-2011, 12:42 PM

Steam engine boilers can use sump oil. Historic steamships here such as "South Steyne" use recycled sump oil in their boilers. Modern steam engines have been developed for shipping. They won't be widespread until the price of oil goes through the roof. Steam engines are also used in industrial applications but I'm not familiar with how widespread the use of recycled oil is as fuel for these.

malazn mafia · 26-07-2011, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by new2ford

Steam engine boilers can use sump oil. Historic steamships here such as "South Steyne" use recycled sump oil in their boilers. Modern steam engines have been developed for shipping. They won't be widespread until the price of oil goes through the roof. Steam engines are also used in industrial applications but I'm not familiar with how widespread the use of recycled oil is as fuel for these.

Interesting. My plan is to rig up an old water heating system into an oil furnace that works on scrap sump oil from any mechanics joint. Apparently if done right, the oil will burn with no odor and will produce a mighty amount of heat. Don't know how I'm going to pipe the heat into the house (hooking it into the central heating system would be nice

). Can the furnace be used to super-heat steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity easily? Just dead tired of paying $1500 a month in electricity/gas to keep the house at 23 degrees through the night

.

TheInterceptor · 26-07-2011, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Big difference between biodiesel and sump oil...

Sump oil is heavily contaminated with all sorts of additives and other sludges and carbons. You would have to do an awful lot of filtering and quality control to get it to something you would want to run in an engine without smoking out the neighbourhood.

Some guys out here do biodiesel for thier cars...old chip oil from fish and chip shops and the like...and it too is a lengthy process and has to be done exactly right. One guy here thought he knew better and changed a couple of the additives (something to do with the naptha and another one, can't remember which), and blew up one diesel in his car, and then damaged the second replacement engine as well.

It's not as easy as most people think...biodiesel can be done, but it's not as simple as "strain it and use it"...

Yes it is! Not biodiesel but used chip oil yes. You do have to filter it to 5 microns before pouring into your tank. Common rail diesels need it down to 1 micron but its a good idea not to use chip oil in CRDI engines.

Required mods for a pure chip oil system would be fuel line heaters and injector heaters to reduce the viscosity of the oil. But if your running a single tank mixed system, i dont think you need heaters (depends on the mix ratio really) as the fuel would flow allright through the system.

Long term effects of this is unknown to me but i have heard people who havent had any problems after running it for years.

Now bio diesel. I know a little about it. Its a completly different process (yes it is a long process at that) that requires stages of filtering and refining. That is, the oil must be heated to 50 degrees celcius then a mix of Methanol and Caustic Soda is added (so thats Sodium Methoxide if im not mistaken). That breaks the molacular structure of the vege oil into two parts, Methyl Esthers (unrefined bio deisel) ends up at the top and Methyl Glycerol at the bottom (im sure thats unusable).

Now i assume you pour the Methyl Esthers into your tank and dispose of the Glycerol somwhere. Only so long as your fuel system doesnt have any rubber seals or components to kill, then you can use the biodeisel. But the thing is the Sodium Methoxide can kill your nerve endings apon contact, the Methanol will send you tipsy if you dont ventilate correctly, then theres the issue of suspended water etc..

Takes forever. Messy. More or less dangerous. Higher risk.
I know what ill be doing when the price of diesel skyrockets.

And for all the greenie's out there, using chip oil will create absolutley NO EMMISIONS.

Rangas GTP · 26-07-2011, 10:07 PM

The problem with burning sump oil is that every new fuel delivery received will burn differently and combustion has to be re adjusted to suite. I use to service a steam boiler at Finnemores, fitted with an oil burner. Fuel supply was sump oil from the trucks on site that were being seviced and dumped into storage pits. plenty of inline filters including magnets. Oil was then pumped through electric pre heaters to 80 degrees to thin the oil out. At the burner compressed air is also used with the oil to atomise fuel for cleaner combustion. All this to generate steam to clean trucks.
Not many places around now burning heavy oil, alot had changed to biodiesel but have also given up on that due to the left over residue it leaves on furnace tubes. Most that are oil fired are on diesel or have been converted to run on natural gas or lpg.
Emmision testing of all stacks was to be introduced by 2005 but has only just started taking affect now. Carbon Tax!

jmack · 26-07-2011, 11:50 PM

having worked as a boiler technicain you can burn just about anything ,worked on all types from tallow ,char oil,different forms of diesels and gasses including hydrogen.true gasses are cleaner but the others can work out a lot cheaper and all comes down to availability.our heater at work runs on sump oil.you can buy machines to turn wood into small pallets to be fed into boilers for home that can then run your hot water and hyroponic heating.imagination is the only limit

foxtrot3 · 27-07-2011, 09:12 AM

Hi. Saw this on the TV the other day http://bluegen.net/ . It uses gas in a ceramic fuel cell to generate electricity and the "waste" heat gives you all the hot water you need. Cheers MD

2011G6E · 27-07-2011, 09:44 AM

Haven't heard of it happening here in Oz, but in England a few years back there was a TV piece on some guys who pooled thier resources and set up a "still" in one guys shed, collecting chip oil from all around the area, and processing it into diesel. There is a process to follow...it involves things like naptha and stages of filtering and adding a few other things. You [I[can[/I] just run it in a diesel, but you'd be a fool...the stuff is too thick and will gum up stuff, leading to damage. Seen it happen, more than once, to guys out here who think it's easy and you don't have to follow a "recipe".

Anyway, back to the English guys. They were able to run a couple of old Pajeros and a few Puegeot diesel cars on it, and were praised by the local council for doing thier bit for the environment.
Then came the follow-up news story. They were facing quite heavy fines and legal proceedings from the government for what they were doing.

Why? You ask? For something to do with anti-pollution devices on the cars? Why? The reason was quite simple.

Tax evasion.

By making thier own fuel, they were evading the government excise on fuel, getting around paying it like every other motorists have to, and the government just didn't fricking like it, so came down on them like a ton of bricks.

As I said, hasn't happened here...yet...but I wouldn't bet on it never happening...

jmack · 27-07-2011, 01:22 PM

the bluegen system sounds good if you let the ranga do the costing of it but at nearly 40k (which includes 3 years service and then nearly 8k a year after that to replace cells,filters etc)gas usage on top of that and you would want to get a good grid feed in rate to try and break even.yes they will be cheaper as more people get it as with anything this is where all the stimulas packages should have went instead of being mostly wasted with products that put more demand on the system.

Mr Hardware · 27-07-2011, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

Just dead tired of paying $1500 a month in electricity/gas to keep the house at 23 degrees through the night

.

i'd rather freeze

also, has anyone suggested a fireplace yet?

**GasoLane** · 27-07-2011, 01:51 PM

Erm, how about turning it down to about 19c and turning it off at night?

Tobey · 27-07-2011, 02:10 PM

Or put a jumper on...

vibe_xr6 · 27-07-2011, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Erm, how about turning it down to about 19c and turning it off at night?

Obvisouly he doesnt like doing things the simple way, otherwise he would have bought an FG instead of the conversion

senojekips · 26-08-2011, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

Interesting. My plan is to rig up an old water heating system into an oil furnace that works on scrap sump oil from any mechanics joint. Apparently if done right, the oil will burn with no odor and will produce a mighty amount of heat. Don't know how I'm going to pipe the heat into the house (hooking it into the central heating system would be nice

). Can the furnace be used to super-heat steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity easily? Just dead tired of paying $1500 a month in electricity/gas to keep the house at 23 degrees through the night

.

I know it's getting near the end of winter now, and thoughts will drift away from cheap heating, but you could always build one of these,... Mine has been running for 14 winters now. As you can see we have beige carpet which we get professionally cleaned every two or three years or so, never the less, the unit is generally no "dirtier" to run than a wood fire.

And, no, I haven't been reported by my neighbours for smoke or horrible odours. As Jmack said, you can burn just about any carbonaceous fuel so long as you go about it the right way. This system uses a "two stage burn" which traps any heavy metals in the ash, not that many cars and trucks have lead based bearing metal any more. It's usually Babbit which is a tin based alloy.

The unit is basically made out of two interlocking truck brake drums, a cylinder liner, an old truck flywheel, a cast iron camp oven and a few scraps of 6mm steel plate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwSmYz_g6U

mik · 26-08-2011, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by senojekips

I know it's getting near the end of winter now, and thoughts will drift away from cheap heating, but you could always build one of these,... Mine has been running for 14 winters now. As you can see we have beige carpet which we get professionally cleaned every two or three years or so, never the less, the unit is generally no "dirtier" to run than a wood fire.

And, no, I haven't been reported by my neighbours for smoke or horrible odours. As Jmack said, you can burn just about any carbonaceous fuel so long as you go about it the right way. This system uses a "two stage burn" which traps any heavy metals in the ash, not that many cars and trucks have lead based bearing metal any more. It's usually Babbit which is a tin based alloy.

The unit is basically made out of two interlocking truck brake drums, a cylinder liner, an old truck flywheel, a cast iron camp oven and a few scraps of 6mm steel plate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwSmYz_g6U

that`s a beuty mate.

malazn mafia · 26-08-2011, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by senojekips

I know it's getting near the end of winter now, and thoughts will drift away from cheap heating, but you could always build one of these,... Mine has been running for 14 winters now. As you can see we have beige carpet which we get professionally cleaned every two or three years or so, never the less, the unit is generally no "dirtier" to run than a wood fire.

And, no, I haven't been reported by my neighbours for smoke or horrible odours. As Jmack said, you can burn just about any carbonaceous fuel so long as you go about it the right way. This system uses a "two stage burn" which traps any heavy metals in the ash, not that many cars and trucks have lead based bearing metal any more. It's usually Babbit which is a tin based alloy.

The unit is basically made out of two interlocking truck brake drums, a cylinder liner, an old truck flywheel, a cast iron camp oven and a few scraps of 6mm steel plate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwSmYz_g6U

That is terrific. So there are no unusual smells coming from it at all? Do you have any plans on paper or something, or would you be able to build and sell one?

senojekips · 27-08-2011, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

That is terrific. So there are no unusual smells coming from it at all? Do you have any plans on paper or something, or would you be able to build and sell one?

The lack of smell even surprised me,...

I have on several occasions (maybe 5 or 10 times in 14 years) been able to smell a slight odour of burning oil for a few minutes, but on each of these occasions it was just after I had lit it and it was still warming up. My neighbour to the east of me is barely 2 metres down wind, and when asked if she had ever smelt anything unpleasant looked at me quizzically wondering what I was talking about.

I have climbed onto the roof and I could smell a slight odour that smelt almost exactly the same as fresh bitumen, but this smell was not detectable anywhere on the ground. The flue gas is certainly a lot cleaner and less detectable than any wood fire.

I don't really have a complete set of plans, but I did draw up a couple of general sketches to help explain it to others which I have converted to Word Documents so most people can see them. You can download them on this page: http://spicrosoft.com/Heater/Heater1.htm

There have been about 30 of them built that I know of all over the world and I have included a few shots of various ones on the site above, otherwise, you will find a few more videos on YouTube if you type ozzirt (my Username on YouTube) into the search.

It would be almost impossible for me to build and send them to people as they weigh well over 100Kgs and the freight would cost more than they are worth. But they are certainly a good project for people to build in their back sheds.

senojekips · 27-08-2011, 10:09 AM

Here's a link to another quick video taken this morning, Yeah,... I know it looks sunny, but it's still only about 5 degrees here, and I will keep the heater running until about 10am when I'll be able to shut it down until about 4pm when I'll light it up again ready for tonight.

You will notice that although there is no smoke in the wide angle shot, it does appear to be smoking slightly in the zoomed shot. This is actually a optical illusion caused by the heat haze.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reF-BCP9vyA