Topic: Centrifuge filtering

[veggielux Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close veggielux]

Hi there,

I am currently cold filtering to 5micron using undersink filters. I have been thinking that a centrifuge would be a great next step.

Has anyone made one? cheap? and if so have they got plans i have been scouring the internet with no joy.

Is there a supplier of centrifuges in aus that would be cheaper than the ones i am able to find in the US

cheers

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Is there a reason why you would want to use a centrifuge? Your 5 micron filters not good enough or taking too long?

Regards,
Tony

[Bueff Biofuel Enthusiast Find all posts View Profile Close Bueff]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Depending on your fuel consumption, buying a centrifuge might be the better idea. I bought one from the states, paid it self off within 3 month.
The big plus is that everything is put together in a kit, imagine a unbalanced bowl spinning at 6000rpm and then is send flying because your lathe missed a bit, or your bolts where unable to holt it in place.
Stay away from the pressurised units they a re useless if your oil is dirty as they rely on clean oil to pass through the jets.

The one I had was gravity fed, amazing how much crap you pull out of the oil, even though it was settled for ages and looked crystal clear.

Making bio now, much better :-) in my opinion.

[Alga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alga]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Ive had a raw power fuge from the USA for more than 5 years and they do a top job, The only trouble was a bit of unbalancing, so ordered new bearings and seals. Only to find it was unbalanced because a possum had been getting in, standing on the edge of the bowl and eating the junk inside. Once I'd reset the bowl its been working flawlessly. Had heaps of trouble with pressurised ones, absolutely useless.

Have tried to make my own centrifuge, using twin tub washing machine spin driers. Never go the right setup to work properly and cleaning it out as a real trial, as was the mess it created.

Don't heat my oil or settle it any more, if it pours, in it goes and that's it, depending on the amount of crap in the oil will depend on how often you have to clean the bowl. Air temperature also has a bearing and have a very fine filter after the centrifuge which catches any solids, water or thick crap that may get through. The speed your oil goes into the centrifuge also has a bearing on how clean it comes out and have found setting it to where it does just over 100lt a day, is the best setting. Slower and it's a pain, faster and some stuff can get through.

As for taking out water, with the right input speed setting, it removes all water in my experience. I've accidentally poured a drum of oil with a good deal of water in the bottom and only noticed when it stopped feeding clean oil out. Opened it up and the bowl was half full of water, rather than draining the feed tank, every time the oil stopped coming out, stopped it and watched the run off bucket fill with water. Ended up with about 2 lt of water in the bucket that day. Put the processed oil back through the centrifuge to check it and it was clean and dry, no water to be seen in the bowl.

As Bueff says, you get your money back in no time and it frees you to do more things and not be stuck lifting containers and cleaning filters. I also make BD, but as we travel a lot, use BD for starting/ stopping and oil for running. That way we pick up oil on the road and filter it as we go, working on setting up the centrifuge in the band trailer for our really long trip this year, would save me heaps of time and having to clean up lots of crap when refueling. Now have lifepo4 in the bus, can run the fuge from that, or where ever we come across 240v power.

The fuge motor is a 3 phase motor which runs through a motor controller. The one that came with it lasted one year before it stuffed up and believe that may have been contributed to by the fine oil mist that seems to emanate from the process, covering everything. Instead of getting another controller from the USA at a huge cost, got one off ebay really cheap and it's worked flawlessly since. Did move it out of the room and would suggest anyone using a fuge, to put any electronics outside the fuge room. I run mine at 5000rpm, not 6000rpm, found this speed puts less strain on fuge and also removes all the junk.

[veggielux Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close veggielux]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Hi fella's thanks for your replys

I'm finding at the moment i can filter 200l to 5um in about 2hrs which is not bad, however i know as winter approaches this is going to become increasingly hard with oil being thicker and therefore requiring heating, I do not want to spend money on electric heating however would be interested in building a WVO oil burner which would be plumbed inline to a flat Plate plate heat exchanger or something similar to preheat oil before filtering. i think a centrifuge means no throw away filters and easy filtering with the right viscosity of pre settled oil.

I think that considering i can use 200l a week or more at times a centrifuge would be a good next step. I have just ticked over 10,000 klms on veg and have paid off my system thus far so i think i could see the centrifuge paying itself off fairly quicky.

I was thinking of building one from an Omega1000 juicer as i have seen done on youtube (check out this link https://youtu.be/rS26K9xt3Zg) I have had the thought that this small fuge could be a good way to filter oil whilst traveling.

The bigger centrifuges seem to work well and as yet have not herd to many bad things about them.
Alga thanks for your great response this gives me more confidence in spending the money and getting something that works well.
Alga would you mind posting some pictures of your setup? i'm curious to see how other people are doing it.

[Alga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alga]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Whatever you do, don't stop using inline throw away filters. Using a centrifuge doesn't provide pristine non contaminated oil, there are many things which contaminate the oil requiring an inline filter. If diesel has been in the tank you will get junk coming through, mainly little black flakes. I'm beginning to think heat exchangers may contribute to the flakes, as in all the years been using VO, tried everything to get rid of the gunk. Even put the I through the fuge 4 times and it still produces gunk in the filter. My 2h cruiser which has done more than 350000klms on VO, still has gunk in it, even though the tank has been thoroughly cleaned out a couple of times.

This could also be caused by the oil having previously been heated to over 180deg for cooking and it is only when the oil is heated in the car that this crap is released. Yet to be able to run an engine on pure VO which has not been used for cooking for any length of time, so don't know if that's the reason. When I used to super heat my oil before use, it didn't produce much gunk, but there was still some and about the same as fuging it. Filters last from 500klms to thousands, so not real pattern.

Others may have different experiences, but the best all year round oil for me, is when I fuge it cold during winter. I can use it for winter or summer, but oil filtered in summer, is trouble in winter.

My fuge is gravity fed and consists of a 200lt drum cut into two, the feed drum is larger then the receiver. It's then pumped into 1000lt cubies for storing.

As for photo's, haven't been able to uopload photo's to this site for years for some reason and still can't. Otherwise would happily post photo's.

[Harvey Member Find all posts View Profile Close Harvey]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

I must admit, the idea of a basket centrifuge sounds great, but with a fuel usage of 40lt per week the various fuses from the USA at $3k AUD can't be justified.
So if China can make industrial sized ones for $1,500 AUD, http://www.ebay.com/itm/brand-new-4h...item568b844b6b

When will they make one that's a better size for waste oil barons?

P.S. I cant see the use of the scintex etc pump fed fuges as they only hold 3/5 of 5/8 of not much crap/water. If your oil is so clean that this is ok why bother?

Best regards to all oil barons.

[smithw Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close smithw]

Re: Topic: Centrifuge filtering

Ive been thinking of building one to polish bio, Ive seen one on youtube made from a torque converter and a electric motor. It might be a while before I can make a start as Ive just brought a house and will be very busy with that for the next few weeks/ months.
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwHa-WzmThU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UrIH0252Zg