Unique Auto

Posts Tagged ‘biofuel’

First what are these two types of filtering systems?

WVO (waste vegetable oil) centrifuge:

A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor that puts WVO in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The oil entrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to evenly distribute substances (WVO) of greater and lesser density. Traditional centrifuges use an electric motor to spin a bowl at high RPM and create a force like gravity but up to 3000 times the force of gravity. This speeds up particulate and water separation enormously. Separation levels that might take months using only gravity will take less than a minute in a centrifuge. And most industrial centrifuges are continuous so dirty WVO can be fed in and clean WVO fuel exits. accumulatMost centrifuges must be stopped to remove the contaminants but some systems are available that allow automated cleaning without stopping the centrifuge.

WVO (waste vegetable oil) Filter:

A gravity or pressure filtration system, the WVO is simply poured into a filter bag placed over a container into which the WVO is collected. These filter bags come in different microns or levels of filtering ability to fit your needs.

Which is better well it all comes down to how much WVO you want to process, how much time you have to spend processing how much money do you want to spend and how hard do you want to work.

With WVO Filter system Oil will run through a 100 micron filter bag at 2-5 gallons per minute however, if the oil is dirty or just creamy the flow rate will deteriorate rapidly. Pre-heating the oil helps as does larger/longer filter bags.  My advice is to only use filter bags after settling. Which means time waiting for the oil to settle. Cartridge WVO filters, tee strainers ECT, should be used only with heated oil or heating of the filter.Waxy particles in cool oil quickly clog cartridge filters and no amount of pressure will resolve this issue. Any mechanical cartridge filter will require an amount of pressure to work, finding an appropriate pump, plumbing and pressure relief system can be difficult and large spills are possible.

With WVO Centrifuge “Forced Settling” can clean WVO to sub micron levels as well as removing heavier liquid contaminants such as water.f you are looking at having to deal with hundreds of gallons or more a centrifuge is your only solution. A WVO centrifuge is required to remove solid and liquid contaminants from the WVO regardless of size. Centrifuges have proven to be quite efficient in the cleaning of waste vegetable oil and reducing the free fatty acids in the pre processing of Biodiesel. They also have proven to remove glycerin after the processing. Contaminant particles as small as 1/10^th of 1 micron are removed, all without the use of a disposable costly filter element. There is simply no better way to make quality biodiesel quickly. What takes many hours for gravity to separate down a centrifuge can separate instantly in seconds.

ue to unstable oil price situation in the world market, many countries have been looking for alternative energy to substitute petroleum. Researches on the use of waste vegetable oils (WVO) as fuel substitutes in diesel engines have been done in many countries with much success.
Biofuel is diesel fuel that is made by reacting waste vegetable oil (WVO) with other common chemicals. Biofuel may be used in any diesel automotive engine in its pure form or blended with petroleum-based diesel.
Biodiesel is nontoxic and biodegradable, that it can help reduce dependence on foreign oil and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. It’s an oxygenated fuel, so it burns more completely than other fossil-based products. Filling your car with biodiesel cuts down on emissions of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfur and the nastiest of all diesel byproducts–particulate matter.
Cars built since 1994 that are already equipped with diesel engines can run even 100 percent biodiesel with little or no modification. Some work will be needed to run on pure vegetable oil, but you may be able to do it yourself.
The energy content of a given amount of waste vegetable oil is only a little less than that of diesel fuel, and is more than for gasoline. Therefore, power and fuel economy on WVO is almost the same as on diesel. Under most conditions, there is little or no perceptible difference to the driver between driving on diesel and driving on WVO.
WVO system reliability has improved greatly in a short period of time. The growing base of WVO users have contributed their knowledge to that gained in production and sale of systems.
Biodiesel is a natural fuel system lubricant. Independent studies by Stanadyne Automotive Corp. and Southwest Research Institute show biodiesel improves the wear or scarring of metal parts within the fuel system.
The flash point (the point at which fuel ignites) for biodiesel (B100) is a minimum of 300 degrees versus about 125 degrees Fahrenheit for regular petroleum diesel #2.
Biodiesel is also non-toxic and biodegradable. These factors make biodiesel one of the safest fuels to use, handle and store.

There is a lot of information about vegetable oil and how it is made, its use from the time it is processed to the time it is considered as a waste product. Usually the point it becomes a waste product is when it leaves the fryer. But is that the end of its serviceable life some say no there is an increasing interest to use this waste oil as fuel, biodiesel and biofuel.

How is waste vegetable oil or (WVO) made into fuel? First of all, this needs to be done at room temperature at about 70 degrees Farenheit – add some sodium hydroxide (lye), methanol (heet), and vegetable oil. Adding these three ingredients together in correct quantities and mix them until they are completely blended. At this point, you let the mixture settle and it will separate into layers where the bottom layer will be the glycerin and the top layer the biodiesel.

The process mentioned above was with pure oil, but what about the oil and grease from fryers and grills, what should be done when you have old oil or isn’t very clean? Well at the start of the process you need to filter the oil there are many ways to do this Bag filters are the easiest, cheapest and slowest processing tool that you have other than strait settling to process WVO . Oil will run through a 100 micron filter bag at 2-5 gallons per minute however, if the oil is dirty or just creamy the flow rate will deteriorate rapidly . Pre-heating oil helps as does larger/longer filter bags. You can use filter bags after settling, but the best advise is to use the centrifuge to get more precision process.

Cartridge WVO filters, tee strainers ECT, should be used only with heated oil or heating of the filter.  Waxy precipitates in cool oil quickly clog cartridge filters and no amount of pressure will resolve this issue.  Reserve cartridge filters for final polishing/filtering at transfer into the vehicle or very low volume/emergency use.   Any mechanical cartridge filter will require an amount of pressure to work, finding an appropriate pump, plumbing and pressure relief system can be difficult and large spills are possible.

Another way is to use what I call “Forced Settling” WVO centrifuges can clean WVO to sub micron levels as well as removing heavier liquid contaminants such as water.  If you are looking at having to deal with hundreds of gallons or more, a centrifuge is your only solution.

You probably don’t stop to think about it, but all fuels have a shelf life that depends on their chemical composition and storage conditions. The chemical stability of biodiesel depends on the oil from which it was derived. Biodiesel from oils that naturally contain the antioxidant tocopherol or vitamin E (e.g., rapeseed oil) remain usable longer than biodiesel from other types of vegetable oils. Stability is noticeably diminished after 10 days and the fuel may be unusable after 2 months. Temperature also affects fuel stability in that excessive temperatures may denature the fuel.

If we convert organic matter into fuel, we can produce what we may call as Biofuels that can be use for powering our society. These are just a method of lowering our long-term dependence on the dwindling supply of fossil fuels. There are a number of derivatives of biofuels that are used frequently with ethanol being the most commonly used but the is also sugar can and the oil from both vegetables and corn. Although often used as an alternative for gasoline, ethanol doe have other uses. As of today, only two percent of the world’s usable gasoline is consisted of ethanol but according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), by 2025, it would rise up to 10 percent and up to 30 percent by 2050.

There is still a long way to go in making these biofuels economically viable according to research carried out by Oregon State University. We have yet to develop bio-fuels that are as energy efficient as gasoline made from petroleum. We measure the efficiency of any energy by how much we obtain from it in relation to how much was used to create it. Despite our best efforts, fuel sources always require a greater input than they are able to supply back. While it is true that the end product energy is what’s more valuable for our needs and that the input energy is just the effort it takes to produce the end-product, taking into consideration that what truly matters is the conversion, is important. To illustrate this the energy efficiency of ethanol is only twenty percent, biodiesel is sixty nine percent whereas gasoline is seventy five percent. Although these studies did provide proof of something very interesting: Ethanol derived from Cellulose is 85% efficient which as actually higher than nuclear energy.

Stock exchanges everywhere are looking to invest in these areas as the profitability of biofuels starts to be felt. Indeed, it is predicted by a consensus of analysts that these fuels will be supplying seven percent of the entire world’s transportation fuels by the year 2030. One certain energy markets analyst has said, growth in demand for diesel and gasoline may slow down dramatically, if the government subsidizes firms distributing biofuels and further pushes to promote the use of eco-friendly fuel. Read this information about how diesel vs gas vehicles compare. Need some tips for saving gas? So how do you compare gas cars vs. diesel cars?

Take Brazil for example: they have become the foremost producer worldwide of ethanol’s made from sugar. It produces approximately three and a half billion gallons of ethanol per year. Next to Brazil, the United States, which is the world’s greatest oil-guzzler, is now one of the largest producer of bio fuels. This figure far exceeds the amount produced by the European Union annually with just four million tonnes. Now eighty percent of Europe’s biodiesel comes from rapeseed oil with the remaining twenty percent from soybean and a little from palm oil.