Shortening in WVO - Diesel Forum

Spencnaz · 03-13-2005, 07:53 PM

Last night I went to dinner at my fave restaurant around the corner (I walked btw).

I told them about my biodiesel pilot plant and was looking for suppliers of WVO and also asked if they would like for me to take their oil off their hands for free.

They said that would be great but said that they put their shortening in there too. I said I knew of a way to get that shortening out.

So this is my question, will the shortening be taken care of in the transesterfication process or will the shortening just be settled at the the bottom of the waste oil and and I won't pick any up?

I would like an answer pretty soon here, as my mobile processor is in 'drydock' being constructed.

Thankx

Spencnaz [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

girlmark · 03-13-2005, 09:12 PM

Any fat can be made into biodiesel, but there are a few things that act differently:

biodiesel made from solid fat like hydrogenated shortening or grill scrapings or lard will have a worse cold weather performance than biodiesel made from liquid fat. This shouldn't be a big problem in warm weather.

make sure you can heat the oil for your processor- if it's an Appleseed-type water heater one (veggieavenger.com/media) then you'll want a barrel with a heating element in it so you can melt the lard/hydrogenated fat slop so that it can be pumped into the processor. Also heat is important during reaction anyway, but for thicker fats it's extra important. It makes the fat thin enough that it can mix fully with methanol so you don't have pockets of unreacted fat and unreacted metahnol running around in the processor

If the restaurant is talking about grill scrapings, there are a few other problems-= the scrapings are usually full of hamburger bits and other crap that can rot. EEEEEWWWW. Really. It's completely disgusting stuff to handle. You can filter it out with a window-screen piece (how you do this depends on your collections method- you may have to pour it through a strainer made out of window screen). You may have to melt the stuff first before filtering or straining. Yuck.

Restaurants are usually pretty good about understanding that grill scrapings are gross and that you can't handle them, and segregating that garbage out to some other disposal method. YOu might be able to talk them into putting the oil into the original 5 gallon jugs they buy it in, and giving you those- and putting the grill scrapings into the barrel that the renderer uses (assuming you're not 'taking over' from the renderer).

But check first that the oil is worth it in the first place- ask for a sample from their barrel,a nd try andmake some 1-liter batches. It might be too gross to deal with unless the proximity of the restaurant to your house makes it a no-brainer.

Tests for oil quality include the 'titration' and heating up a little sample (1/2 cup or so) in a saucepan over the kitchen stove to see if it bubbles at the boiling point of water or not. If it bubbles hard, it's full of water (from cooking) and you might have a hard time using it. Titration will tell you how heavily used the stuff is= which will tell you if it's worth making fuel out of it (ie if it's about a 5 on the titratoin or higher you can't use it easily). Depending on what you find, it may or may not remain your fave restaurant...

Mark

Spencnaz · 03-13-2005, 09:19 PM

Thanks for the info. BTW I'm using your Appleseed processor plans to make an automated 2 tank system of my own with Programmable Logic Controls to motivate the pump and actuate the valves in sequence.

I kind of thought that would be the case with the shortening. It's been so warm here in Seattle that it shouldn't be a problem. The grease is coming from a Chinese restaurant, so I'm not seeing any large chunks of stuff in the oil. I will of course be filtering before any processing.

Thanks for the info. I'll post my results and progress of my SCORBA (self-contained on-road biodiesel apparatus) in the future.

biobenz · 03-13-2005, 09:46 PM

Want some pretty nifty 5 gal pail strainers? They fit perfectly in the top of the pail and you can get the 200 micron ones that will get all the large stuff and some of the smaller stuff too. I ordered 4 (it's cheaper).
http://www.thecarycompany.com/contai...strainers.html
This way you can strain at pick up and not have to perform a seperate and time consuming filtering later.I have done the later and it's a PITA (Pain In The Anatomy). Now I will be filtering as I pick up the WVO thereby eliminating the need to do it again before processing.
They usually have a large garbage bin clesby you can empty out the strainer in ;-)

ToddT · 03-13-2005, 10:38 PM

Check out US Plastics at www.usplastic.com for the same type 5 gallon and 55 gallon strainers. The 5 gallon 100 micron screen is only $3.04 each.

Todd T

Monte1 · 03-14-2005, 12:32 PM

For those of you who want free 5-gallon filters, take two identical 5-gallon buckets. Cut the bottom off one of them on the smooth tapered part a couple inches below the handle. Slip the bucket top inside the full bucket, but stretch some fiberglass window screen between the two pieces. The assembly will provide a tight window-screen filter. If you want finer screening, you can use two or more window screen layers. I learned this trick when I was a bee keeper and used to strain particulates out of honey. BTW, I am not a wvo guy yet, just lurking around thinking about it.

Pu241 · 03-14-2005, 02:47 PM

Monte1,

Like the idea, but window screen is has square openings of approximately 1mm which is equvalent to 1000 microns or 18 mesh.
100 microns is 10x smaller and even that isn't good enough for fuel.

But the window screen would be good for a rough filtration to remove the large particals and would save the 100 micron and less filters, from clogging pre-maturely on these "bolders". The price is right as well!

Pu241

Spencnaz · 03-14-2005, 04:21 PM

Has anyone thought about inventing a centrifuge for WVO? To get get the heavier items out of solution? I'm sure one could be designed using an old washing machine motor and drum.

I know Pu241 would be interested, Plutonium is centrifuged for enrichment [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

svswan · 03-14-2005, 04:34 PM

Regarding the 200 and 100 mesh bucket screens -

I have both in the 5 gl bucket size. The 200 is great. Catches all chunkyness and will pass oil at a good rate with a lot of junk in it. I get cubies from a sushi place that are filled with golden and clear wvo save for little tempora knodules. The fairly clean oil I get from a Thai place will clog the 100m filter in 5 or 10 gallons. This is oil you can see through as it pours. I use both filters as I pour oil into my first settleing drum. On an inspiration after my girlfriend baked a cake last weekend I went and grabed her small rubber batter scrapper (not a spatula but it looks kinda like one with one rounded corner) and when the 100m screen will not empty I scrape it with the kitchen tool to get it to drain, then take it out and clean it.

if anyone can use it, there's 2 cents ;-}

Pu241 · 03-14-2005, 05:14 PM

Spencnaz,

[ QUOTE ]
know Pu241 would be interested, Plutonium is centrifuged for enrichment

[/ QUOTE ]

Uranium has to be enriched.
Plutonium is "good" to go after chemical separation from uranium and other non fissile materials.
In U.S. we developed centrifuge and laser ionization, but still use the Y12 gaseous diffusion facility built 50yrs ago!Uranium hexflouride is nasty stuff and I see it transported via truck every now and then!

Yeah, a centrafuge would be nice, but does anyone have the equations to determine what rpm would be needed to remove materials with a density differential of say 1% higher than WVO. Centrifuges work on density not particulates. Just so happens particulates have different densities from the main component of WVO. So should work fine!

Pu241- Our Middle East peace option!

Spencnaz · 03-14-2005, 05:26 PM

I would think that centrifuging would work, it works on separating particulate matter (solids from liquids) in many applications, i.e. phlebotomy work.

One would have to find out what a the typical mass of the solid particles would be, the angular momentum of said particles in solution and maybe the centistokes (viscosity) of said fluid under torque.

Or, we could just use the trial and error method and just write our experiments down.......

.

I would think that a good spin cycle of the WVO before processing wouldn't hurt it in the least, I mean it's been cooking food at nearly 400 degrees F!

Pu241 · 03-14-2005, 08:39 PM

Spencnaz,

I'm game to rough out what needs to be done or try to see via physics if it can be done per a washing machine spin cycle.
But me thinks a new thread should be started!

Pu241 - The final option for Middle East peace!

ToddT · 03-14-2005, 09:10 PM

I have a cyclonic filter salvaged from a mobile wastewater treatment system I had about a decade ago. It has a 25 micron pleated element plus a bag filter for the heavier solids that spin off. Unfortunately, it operates on a minimum of 8 gallons per minute. I don't think it would separate out the water, though.

I'll get more info on this filter if anyone is interested.

I'm using filter screens and bag filters with smaller and smaller micron levels: 100, 25, 10, 5. I treat 55 gallon batches with heat overnight for dropping out any water both before and after the fine filtering.

Todd T

Pu241 · 03-15-2005, 09:24 AM

ToddT,

I'd be interested in any info you can find!

You know even at 8 gallons a minute you could pump out of your 55 gallon barrel through the cyclonic filter and back into the barrel for say 30 minutes giving multiple passes and likely much better filtration. I suspect though the difficult part is getting 8 gal per minute flow of even heated WVO. Need a darn good pump which translates into $$$.

As for water removal/condensation I'm thinking of some sort of contactor made out of PTFE (Teflon®)which has what is called "high surface energy" and which should help "condense" out water.
It could be as cheap as a wire frame wraped with Teflon tape,
That you place in the barrel
Might be worth checking into!

Pu241

BadTrukRisin · 03-15-2005, 06:53 PM

You know, as a former Chinese restaurant owner, we used an electric hot grease filter system that would work wonders for what you guys are doing. We just opened the ball valve on the bottom of the deep fat fryers into the suction vat of the filter and it would filter and re filter as long as we wanted and then closed the ball valve and let it finish refilling the fryer. It used ??? micron filter elements and seemed to remove everything but the stain and other fats in solution. Whadda ya tink?? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif[/img]
Bud