waste motor oil distillation... to diesel

[mpiller]

I thought many of you might find my new project interesting so I might as well share. I have a 2000 f250 and a diy wvo conversion that Ive been using for almost a year now, but wvo is getting harder and harder to come by now and my few steady sources are dwindling, but I can get very large amounts of wmo pretty easily, so i have thought about running w85, or 50/50 with diesel, or straight wmo through my heated wvo conversion. I do have a centrifuge so the oil would go through that first, but I have seen test results of oil that has been centrifuged and metal particles were still found afterwards, I cannot remember the exact size as I remember them being extremely small, but I still cant get past putting this through my injectors. I do know that there are many refineries, especially in foreign countries that refine their waste oil through distillation into pure low sulphur diesel that can be used in any diesel vehicle. So this is my project, I've built a small prototype still that I'll test tomorrow, it runs off of a 3500w hot water heater element that i tested today to get easily above 300*, but my thermometer didnt go any higher. From my research I believe that diesel should evaporate at around 600*, but I have also seen anywhere from 300*-400*. My plan is to condense anything above 400* and I should be able to come up with something of much lower viscosity, and my favorite part is that it will be completely free of any metal particles. After that Ill still run it through the centrifuge. If this works as planned I'll upscale the project. I'll update this tomorrow with pics and progress but I thought for now I would just see what type of feedback it gets. I'm open to any and all opinions, but if youre going to bash my idea just have a reason to back it up.
Thanks

[Jake]

Sounds like you have one hell of an idea. I wouldn't really be afraid to run centrifuged oil in my truck, though id only run 50% max, but you say you have a heated tank. Even if there are particles a fraction of a micron, i honestly don't think it will hurt anything. I mean, do people really think the fuel we get out of a pump at the station is 100% pure? There is no way it is. And plus, our fuel filters, on a 7.3 anyway, filter to i believe 15 microns. If that was harmful i don't think ford and navistar would allow it to make it to the injectors 100% of the time the engine is running. And if you refine it like you say you will, i don't see ANY problems happening.

I actually want to run a WMO setup, either filters or a centrifuge, because i can get all the WMO i would ever need for free.

[Term3]

Aren't you going to end up spending more money distilling the oil then you save if you just stick with waste veggie oil?

[jesilvas]

I'm sure you've reasearched much more than me but it got me looking too.

HowStuffWorks "How Oil Refining Works"

Gas oil or Diesel distillate - used for diesel fuel and heating oil; starting material for making other products

liquid
alkanes containing 12 or more carbon atoms
boiling range = 482 to 662 degrees Fahrenheit / 250 to 350 degrees Celsius

Very very interesting idea.

[catlinB]

subscribed

[UNDERCOVER_73]

Im hopping on this train, i hopped on the veggi train but became hard to get oil, noones offering anymore.
Tell me how your filtering process goes. Im 98% interested.


Sent from my Autoguide Android Diesel App.

[simone0414]

No bashing here. I have thought of trying this myself but don't have the time for another project plus I have mor VO then I can use.

Please provide as much info as you can. Pics would be great as well. I have read that it takes alot of energy to crack WMO so if that is the case hopefully there is a way around that.

I think you are going to have a large following with this project.

No pressure. lol

[Term3]

No bashing intended. Using waste lube oil as fuel has and is being done by some large trucking companies for some time now. They don't distill it, they highly filter it. I believe it is somehow treated for acidity also. I just think doing your own distilling is going to have a bottom line in the red unless you have a free heat source. Not to mention your neighbors may not care for you boiling up gallons and gallons of flammable oil in your back yard.

[66Bronco]

My only concern with WMO is injector coking. Even highly filtered, oil won't burn as cleanly as #2 does, simply because the HC chains in oil are longer (i.e., requires more energy(heat) to frac). This leaves a lot of carbon on the product side of the combustion process. That carbon will collect on either the injector tips or on the glow plugs, eventually causing piston contact that leads to catastrophic failure. Granted, these effects can be minimized by running a blend, but then you're spending a lot of time/money on something that may not be viable in the long run. Just my two cents.

[Jake]

I would think if you ran a 25% WMO blend you would be fine, there would still be plenty of heat with even more id think. The cumbustions temps are close to or over 2000 degrees.