SVO upflow design with photos! - Page 4

pangit · #31 (**permalink**) 18th December 2008, 08:56 AM

Yes, I left the first batch running for 6 hours and it was 100% dry afterwards, so I might be able to reduce it down to 5. At 4 hours it was nearly dry so I left it going for another 2.

Unfortunately the new bilge pump died on me after only pumping a few litres.

It was a cheapie Ebay one and although it comes with a 2 year warranty it wasn't designed for pumping oil so I don't think I'll be claiming!

It looks like I'll be making a trip down to Whitworths to get a decent Rule one.

Nuddy · #32 (**permalink**) 19th December 2008, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Jones

I also noticed in the whitworths catalog an aerator Pump which appears to be a bilge with a riser that normally sprays the water back into live bait tanks to keep the water oxygenated. One of these could provide a very simple way of spraying the oil to help with drying as well.

Must check out the catalog. I have one at home.
Perhaps this is the key to easy drying setup.
I think the spray method is probably better than the air bubble method for drying.
I have been told that most IP damage is caused by water in the diesel.
Bio users and even dino users may benefit by drying their fuel using one of the methods that WVO users employ.
Meanwhile drying has jumped to the top of my priority list. A trip to whitworths may be in order. I pass by every Monday.

pangit · #33 (**permalink**) 20th December 2008, 10:35 PM

Cheers David, some good ideas I hadn't thought of. Yes, it passed the HPT with no bubbles at all. Although my second batch that I did today still had some tiny bubbles after 5-6 hours. It was pretty good though. I'm sure I could improve my drying system but it works well enough for now.

I bought a Rule 1100GPH pump and it works brilliantly. Too well in fact, I'll have to slow it down a bit.

Note: don't get cheap Ebay bilge pumps (Seaworld brand) they are rubbish compared to decent Rule ones and not much cheaper once you've paid postage etc.

Recirculating definitely works a whole load better than bubbling Paul, as bubble drying used to take me several days and now it's a matter of hours. Bubbling is OK for biodiesel but WVO is too thick to dry effectively with it.

Johnnojack · #34 (**permalink**) 21st December 2008, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pangit

......
Recirculating definitely works a whole load better than bubbling Paul, as bubble drying used to take me several days and now it's a matter of hours. Bubbling is OK for biodiesel but WVO is too thick to dry effectively with it.

Sean you must be talking about drying cold oil? I have found bubbling very effective and it only takes hours not days. However my oil is warm when bubble drying (50-55degC) Do you dry cold/room temperature oil with the pump and fan method?
FWIW I havent needed to dry any oil for a while as at the end of the upsettling process it is HPT bubble free.

This may be due to my latest practice of opening the valve at the bottom of the 2nd to last drum every 2 days and draining out about 2 cups of oil which I return to the first drum. Dregs from the bottom of the first drum go outside into the dregs/water/fat bucket.

Johnnojack · #35 (**permalink**) 21st December 2008, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave Jones

If you invest more energy in the oil by heating it, naturally the Drying time will be shortened. Obviously heating the oil to 50o would use more energy than the bubbling would use in a week, so the shorter drying time is no surprise.

True but I use solar heat so my cost of heating is nil

Quote:

I have my setup currently doing 150L of cold oil, filtered and bone dry in 90 minutes. I'm using a 300W pump to " power" it so the energy consumption isn't huge and I'm pretty sure the overall energy consumption of this method would be less than heating the oil to 50 then bubbling it as heating is about the most energy intensive use of power there is. I might even do a totally " green" batch by powering the pump from a WVO fired generator or put a HE on the exhaust and turn a pump with the engine! That would be fast and efficient!

More complicated and capital intensive than a couple of old solar panels but sure would be fun getting it working

Quote:

Each and every method has it's benefits and drawbacks and what suits one person may not suit another for a range of reasons, not the least being personal preference

.
True

Quote:

I think the bilge pump aerator could be very useful for drying on the road. This always seemed to be a " Holy Grail" type of thing to set up but I'm learning of different ways of filtering and drying on the road all the time.
I'll have to go on some road trips just to put a few of these ideas into practice!

Most on road filterers seem to trust their luck that they are using dry oil I'm a bit more of a pessimist. On the road you have lots of free heat, hot coolant. hot exhaust, tropical climate, shouldnt be too hard to heat a drum of oil during the day and dry it by spraying or bubbling overnight. Doing it without having to carry too much stuff, is the real Holy Grail

Quote:

It's very interesting you can get oil dry enough to pass a HPT just by upflow settling. I have never been able to achieve this and was beginning to seriously doubt the reality of this happening. Certainly draining out the glop from the bottom of the tank would help but I still have trouble coming to grips with the fact dissolved water will settle out of the oil to this degree, heating, settling or otherwise.

All I can suggest is that you do need heat to settle out all the water/suspended water. I say this because my first drum is not heated and I can drain out water and fatty oil from its bottom cone yet some water makes its way to the 3rd drum which is solar heated and when I drain that it I get no free water but oil which is 'wet'. Oil above the very bottom is almost dry and oil at the top where it flows into the final drum is dry.

Quote:

I haven't been bothering with upflowing of late.
I believe I have had some stirring due to the oil I have been adding in the upflow tank being warmer than the oil already in it and causing some thermal currents.

Yep it can do that.

Quote:

I have a hard time seeing how the incoming oil would not be cooled sufficiently given it's small percentage to what is already in the tank to negate this effect but I have no other explanation.
As I pre-settle the raw oil before it goes to the upflow tank for several months and only draw the real good stuff off the top, I have just been adding it in the top of the upflow drum.

I do that too, in 20litre plastic buckets yet it still contains water

Quote:

....Upflow is a continuous process where normal batch settling is just that, but in the end the main thing that matters is the time the oil is left alone.

Yes, as long as it is settling all the time and not fooling around doing the convection current dance

Quote:

That said, I have also come to believe that using tall, narrow, upflow tanks may also be better than using shorter tanks even if they are of much greater capacity. Rather than the IBC I'm using now, had I a suitable space, I would go to either 200L drums welded together, 2 or 3 of them or 400L water heaters run in parallel. I am thinking that the greater the distance between entry and exit on an upflow system, the better.

Absolutely

Quote:

Another Idea I would like to experiment with is a Pre-upflow using a tall upflow tank outdoors with the top 2/3rds painted black to warm from the sun and the bottom 1/3 have the insulation left on and shaded to keep it much cooler. My thought is that the oil would be warmed and somewhat circulated during the day in the sun allowing the debris and water to drop out during the night. When the oil was reheated subsequently over the next days, the thermals may take place mainly above the black painted area of the tank allowing the bottom part to act like a " sump" which catches all the undesirable material but which is not stirred up when the rest of the oil above it is warmed. If this tank was drained from the bottom regularly to remove the fallout, this sort of setup may prove more efficient that a plain setup as people mainly use now.

You may have to drain off 20 litres from the bottom every evening for this to work. I found daily direct solar heating great for setting up convection currents.

Heating a drum then keeping it hot for as long as possible by means of insulation works better for me.

Quote:

What is the total resident time in your system Johhno from the time you put the oil in your first tank till the time you decant it ?

Goes through the funnel restrictor into the first drum (200 litres) at rate of roughly 2 litres per hour. Settles in 2 more drums before entering final drying drum. So 600/2 litres = 300hrs approx.

craigcurtin · #36 (**permalink**) 29th December 2008, 10:32 PM

DJ,

FWIW - i have a solarheart shop up the road from me - they let me know that they do a lot of swap outs of the "old style" solar water heaters with the tank on the roof - nearly always the tank on the roof rusts out and the panels are still in great condition. Go down to your local solarheart place and offer them a case of beer for panels in really good condition and see how you go. Free heat - and just need a small pump to push the oil through.

Craig

skooled · #37 (**permalink**) 12th March 2009, 09:02 AM

I was chatting to a guy at tafe who installs solar systems, and he begs to differ. he said that the panels tend to go before the tanks, and even if they are good, the connections tend to break when being disconnected.

craigcurtin · #38 (**permalink**) 13th March 2009, 05:07 PM

Only telling you what my guys up the road told me. So far i have seen about 10-12 panels up there that are all in pretty good condition (i have grabbed 8 of them in the last 3 months) - yet i have never seen a good tank.

The tanks join to the copper tubing with compression fittings so i do not know what there is to actually break when disconnecting

Craig

skooled · #39 (**permalink**) 19th March 2009, 10:56 PM

he told me that they were a barrel union, but not having been up and seen one for my self......

t-roy · #40 (**permalink**) 6th November 2009, 01:14 PM

G'day Sean, I know its an old post, but wondering if the photo's of your upflow set up are still around, or maybe photo's of the new and improved version? Troy

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