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Burlington, North Carolina

 

BIO-Diesel

Co-op Reactor II  Elsbett    Filtration
 2.0		 VW Modifications Media    Biodiesel Tees
2nd Generation WVO filtration equipment
Beyond biodiesel:

To be able to run a diesel engine on biodiesel is very easy, just do it!  Getting a diesel to run SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) instead of biodiesel is a little more complicated, but has a many positive attributes.  Quicker processing time, no additional chemicals and the hazards they present, and a lot cheaper!

Now that I have made the Elsbett modification to my 2000 VW Golf TDI engine we are know developing a system to filter WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) to the quality of SVO.   We have successfully filtered WVO down to 1 micron and mixed with different percentages of biodiesel with no issues even to the point of being able to run 100% WVO.                                                           

On May 20th we successfully got
the WVO filtration to 1 micron.

August 6th our latest WVO filtration come online, see below

After months of trying different filtering methods we have found a very good WVO filtration system.  First rough filter the WVO to get the big stuff out of the oil, then pump the oil into our 110 gallon plastic tank.  Let set for about two weeks.  Drain the water and thicker oil from the bottom, we usually have between 2-5 gallons of water in the 100 gallons of WVO.  Then pump from the top of the tank about half of the WVO to be used for straight fuel and the bottom half drain out of the bottom to be used for biodiesel.  Amazing how dry and clean WVO will become by just letting settle for a few weeks.

 
3rd generation WVO filtration equipment August 6, 2004 we brought the WVO filtration equipment back online after major modifications to the above design.  This time we got design help from Tom Sineath, and welding expertise from Adrian Boggs.  We have determined we would break the process down into two steps.  First, fast filtration of the WVO to 1 micron and secondly let time and gravity address the water and finer particles that might still be in the WVO.  The two stainless steel tanks in the foreground are for the filtration process and the 110 gallon plastic conical tank is for the water separation.  We have also been successful to make this a one person job!   

We have also designed the system so the stainless tanks can be loaded onto a trailer so as to be able to be pulled to outdoor events to collect the WVO.

 
The first step is once the WVO has been solar heated to help with flow is to pour the WVO in the lower tank through a series of polyester screen meshes ranging from 65-180 threads per square inch.  This removes the big chucks and the stuff you can easily see floating in the oil. After about 40 gallons have been put in this tank the sump will automatically cut on pumping the WVO up to the next tank and through the filter bags shown in the image below.

Once the WVO has cycled through the filters the WVO for about 15 minutes it is then pumped up to the 110 gallon conical plastic tank to start the second process.  After let settling about 24 hours we drain about 2 gallons which will contain most of any water that is in the WVO.  Then we draining about half of the WVO into a 55 gallon barrel to be used for biodiesel.  Then we begin the water/bubble wash on the remaining WVO to address the acidity and let settle for about a week.  After a week we drain the water wash and pump the WVO into another 55 gallon tank which will be filtered one last time before it is put in my car.

 
We used three double bagged filter bags made by Filtration Solutions, the inside bag is 5 micron and the outside is 1 micron.  In the bottom of this tank is a valve that flows back to the bottom tank.  This allows the WVO to filter through multiple cycles, each cycle takes about 1 minutes and right now we cycling for about 15 minutes.
This is one of the filter bags after running about 200 gallons through it.  We are still not sure how long these bags will last, but them seem to being doing a good job of getting the fine material out of the WVO.
A group effort helping with biofuels at T.S. Designs, from left to right Rachel Burton of Piedmont Biofuels, Alexander Noack from Elsbett, Leif Forer from Piedmont Biofuels, myself, and Adrian Boggs.
We then let the WVO set in the storage tank for about 2 weeks and typically get 2-5 gallons of water out of the bottom before pumping it into 55 gallon drums which is taken off to our biodiesel reactor.  What is cool by utilizing the sump pump in the first tank we can pump filtered WVO into awaiting barrels in just minutes!

Eyewitness ABC News from Durham comes to T.S.Designs

See the video
 

For more information contact Eric Henry  336.675.6266 eric@localaction.biz

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