Waste Veg Oil Burner?

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Waste Veg Oil Burner?

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dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 05 4:54 pm Post subject: Waste Veg Oil Burner?

Once upon a time, a discussion on Biodiesel Courses veered into a discussion on the automotive use of Waste Veg Oil, which requires expensive and non-approved engine modifications.
Processing to Biodiesel requires the use of powerful chemicals.

dougal wrote:

If you want to play/experiment in this general area, a relatively *SAFE* area would be the use of Waste Veg Oil for heating, eg an Aga/Rayburn range or a central heating boiler.

I've recently rediscovered the links to the sort of thing I was thinking about:

Waste Veg Oil Burner (with pre-heat)
https://www.green-trust.org/oil_burner.htm

Waste Veg Oil Stove (or old lube oil

)
https://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me7.html

Although (or is it because) my metalwork skills are minimal, it doesn't look terribly difficult...

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 05 6:02 pm Post subject:
I have thought about a veg oil elecy generator. I know some of the large sized generators are diesel and if one could be picked up second hand there would be less to worry about in the conversion.

BB

Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Posts: 9
Location: Kernow (West)

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 05 1:27 am Post subject:
Big old 'Lister' gensets apparently run OK on straight veg oil. e.g. https://www.geocities.com/wastewatts/listers.html ...and what's this 'waste' veg oil you speak of??? It's not waste, it's a commodity! ...unless you want to pay whatever the going is for a waste management licence.

footprints

Joined: 26 May 2005
Posts: 234
Location: North Wales

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 05 6:36 am Post subject: Re: Waste Veg Oil Burner?

dougal wrote:

If you want to play/experiment in this general area, a relatively *SAFE* area would be the use of Waste Veg Oil for heating, eg an Aga/Rayburn range or a central heating boiler.

I've recently rediscovered the links to the sort of thing I was thinking about:

Waste Veg Oil Burner (with pre-heat)
https://www.green-trust.org/oil_burner.htm

Waste Veg Oil Stove (or old lube oil

)
https://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me7.html

Although (or is it because) my metalwork skills are minimal, it
doesn't look terribly difficult...

Thanks for the very interesting link. I have always been interested in different types of stoves(especially ones you can cook on) and have often wondered about an old oil version. I did wonder however if a home made version with its sometimes incomplete combustion would release unburnt nasties.

I have actually built my stove now. It is made from a 19kilo calor bottle. Is flat topped so that you can cook on it. It is multi fuel. It has a small copper boiler that heats the water (and 2 radiators) .

The total cost was around �40. The most expensive part was the glass in the fire door @ �13 (so we could watch the flames

We have since done away with the glass.

In the winter we run the stove on calcoal @ a cost of around �10 a week. Calcoal produces a very fierce heat and only about 10 ltrs of ash for a 3 week burning period.

The stove project was just at the time, "something to put us on" It is still in its "tempo" position 9 years later

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45678
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 05 6:50 pm Post subject:

BB wrote:

Big old 'Lister' gensets apparently run OK on straight veg oil.

e.g. https://www.geocities.com/wastewatts/listers.html

Brilliant link, I like the look of that, so come on Dougal, how would you extract and store the surplus energy from that then?

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 05 8:10 pm Post subject:

There's a lot of green-romantic nonsense about Rudolf Diesel and biofuels.
Diesel patented the engine in 1892, "though it was 1895 before the first real 'diesel' was built. Independant tests of an engine were conducted by Prof Schroter at Augsburg in 1897..."
"Table II illustrates in a general way not only the high economy of the type but also the progress.... all the figures given relate to single-acting four-stroke cycle inverted-vertical engines at full load, using petroleum oils as fuel:
1897 Schroter ... 25.2% Brake Thermal Efficiency
1927 Charing Cross ... 35.5%"
Source: Encylopedia Brittannica 14th edn 1930
It will be noted that the very first reported results from any of Diesel's prototype engines were using petroleum fuel.

The Diesel engine WAS NOT invented specifically to run on veg oils!

They can run on that fuel. BUT, the cruder the engine the better, and starting is a bu**er, requiring the fuel to be pre-heated. (And you may have to clean out the injectors from time to time.)

/rant

For domestic CHP use my main worry would be noise - and noise transmitted through the engine cooling water (water heating) circuit. Water transmits noise rather well...
That apart, it should be pretty easy to replace an engine cooling radiator with a coil through a water tank...
Similarly, I'd guess that an old central heating boiler would make a fine heat exchanger for capturing heat from the exhaust gases!
I'd think that such a setup would be ideal as a source of heat for a domestic heat bank or thermal store.
But each watt of electricity is worth many times the cash value of each watt of heat - so gathering the heat would be the icing on the cake...

However, storing electricity, as always is a pain. And a suitable battery bank looks like it could cost many times more than the engine.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45678
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 10:00 am Post subject:

dougal wrote:

a suitable battery bank looks like it could cost many times more than the engine.

There's always something eh?

Mat S

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 282
Location: Leicester

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 4:12 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

However, storing electricity, as always is a pain. And a suitable battery bank looks like it could cost many times more than the engine.

Isn't that what a grid connection with a net metering arrangement is for?

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 4:17 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I always thought that as long as your fuel pump was suitable then the only issue was the viscosity of the veg oil from cold which led to starting problems.

IIRC a 50/50 mix should run fine with no modifications (depending on the suitability of your existing pump)

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 4:23 pm Post subject:

Mat S wrote:

dougal wrote:

However, storing electricity, as always is a pain. And a suitable battery bank looks like it could cost many times more than the engine.

Isn't that what a grid connection with a net metering arrangement is for?

Yep. Care to show me a UK *net* metering agreement?
Selling electricity back to the grid is not very economic in the UK at present for small-scale producers.

However, if the Lister is capable of generating 3kw then one might use the sort of generator, inverter and mains interface kit as proposed in the wind turbine article... (You'd just be saving on the tower and the 'propellor', but you should have power whenever you wanted it...)

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 4:28 pm Post subject:

Jonnyboy wrote:

Quote:

More strictly, the Injector pump, not any low pressure fuel pump.
And the mods involve preheating the fuel, and a changeover system to run conventional fuel for starting and purgeing before shut off.

There's also a question of gum buildup on what are, in modern cars - but seemingly not the lister, extremely high precision engineered components. Which is the cause of the warranty problems.
These pumps are *expensive*. Remember TreacoD's pal?

Jonnyboy

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 23956
Location: under some rain.

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 4:55 pm Post subject:

Yes, injector pump, sorry for not being more specific. In fact Bosch pumps will normally run veg oil quite happily, but a single tank system works most successfully with Indirect injection, where as Di are especially common rail would favour a two tank system.

I've run veg oil mixes quite happily, although the prevailing temp effects the mix ration. I also use a fuel system cleaner quite regularl (not redex before you ask!)

Mat S

Joined: 07 Nov 2004
Posts: 282
Location: Leicester

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 5:11 pm Post subject:

dougal wrote:

Mat S wrote:

dougal wrote:

However, storing electricity, as always is a pain. And a suitable battery bank looks like it could cost many times more than the engine.

Isn't that what a grid connection with a net metering arrangement is for?

Yep. Care to show me a UK *net* metering agreement?
Selling electricity back to the grid is not very economic in the UK at present for small-scale producers.

Err, I imagine I'll have to get back to you on that. One to add to the Downsizer manifesto - pressure power companies to encourage micro-generation and make net metering available?

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 05 8:22 pm Post subject:

Jonnyboy wrote:

I've run veg oil mixes quite happily, although the prevailing temp effects the mix ration. I also use a fuel system cleaner quite regularl (not redex before you ask!)

The "utterpower" site, extolling the virtues of running Lister diesels on Veg Oil has this to say: -

Quote:

You'll need to do your own assessments of what you can actually do with straight veggie. I know one man who has 4000 hours of running time in Lister (CS) Type Singles using straight and properly filtered and heated veggie, the secret may be the careful monitoring of the carbon build up, and the starting and stopping on biodiesel. The plug found on the CS style head can be quickly pulled to check carbon build up, and injector spray pattern. This head is different than the head found on engines advertised as 6.5 HP Lister types like the (METEX) Metro. Exactly how the new heads work with veggie, I am not sure, I hope my readers will report on the direct injection head, and the use of waste oils. A must is keeping the coolant temp near 200F(place to start), and keeping all fuel lines heated with coolant water. Experienced DIYers who run veggie get used to the normal sound of combustion and can quickly hear the knock that develops when carbon builds up and raises the effective compression. When this happens, they manually clean the combustion chamber or put the engine on a diet of biodiesel, and water inject at high loads, there are additives that people swear will help control this carbon build up, but I have no personal experience with any of them. Clean and properly filtered waste veggie can be run for about 400 to 600 hours before carbon becomes an issue, this is only a guide and starting place for your personal experimentation.

And these Low Tech engines are supposed to be really *good* for running Veg Oil!!!

source https://www.utterpower.com/oilpresses.htm

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