Would this be worth trying?

[DSBlack]

I am still trying to figure out the collection process.I am probably making it too hard. What about puting a 55 gal tank in the back of the truck and pulling a vacuum with the vac pump on the truck and sucking the oil in? I want to make it as easy as possible for 1 person.
What is the best way?

Thanks
Doug

[ToddT]

How about this to add to your idea? Get an open-top metal drum for your vacuum (the poly drums would probably collapse) and put a sump pump inside it. Use the vacuum to pull the grease into the drum and then use the sump pump to pump it back out into your filtration and storage containers.

You could even fabricate a screen part-way down for primary filtration in the vacuum drum. This would work either way. I imagine a ring about 20" from the bottom (12" from the top) like used in a parts cleaner.

We do this in industrial cleaning all the time... keep a sump pump in the drum for discharge. You can mount a hose through the lid to where all you need to do is plug it in and drop the discharge hose (from the sump pump) into your container. How a sump pump will handle the heavier grease is another issue, though. The screens may clog pretty quickly too, depending on the solids present. But, its an idea.

It takes a bit to pull a good vacuum on a 55 gallon drum. There are 30 gallon metal drums out there, though harder to find.
As for the vacuum pump, I've missed where we get the vacuum. Is this a belt-driven vacuum pump added to the engine?

Todd T

[94_turbo]

dont know if youd collapse the drum at 18 of vac??????? and the vac pump on the truck only has a 3/8 id line--will take a while to pull the vac on the drum--let alone keep it up to pull the oil in---

[TravisT]

YOur making it way harder than it needs to be. Just get a 12v transfer pump from a farm store and mount it to a metal 50g, or a bed mounted tank, or have a hand held one that you just sit next to your plastic 50g. But I would use a real transfer pump. Mine is rated at 13gmp and it still takes me an hour at best to pump 100g of Veggie.

[roreri]

FYI all

I have three 300 gallon toke tanks. The big plastic ones that have a metal cage built around them.
I use one to collect with.
I use a 12 volt 13 gpm. farm type transfer pump.
I leave the "office" Saturday mornings about 8am, collect about 300 gallons.
I am back at the "office" unloaded into the 2nd 300 gallon toke tank by noon. It’s my settling tank.
I let it settle for about 3-4 weeks and then filter it into the 3rd toke tank. Its my supply tank.
After you get the first 300 gal in the supply tank. There is plenty of time to let things settle out!
Settling is your friend.

I then have a 115 Volt AC - 15 gpm. pump that I use to <font color="red">“fill’er up please”</font>

There is a step in the middle somewhere that I heat the WVO to about 110 F. before I filter it. But I am in the middle of a major redo in that section of my process.
A 18KW diesel generator and electric water heater are comming into play here. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smokin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smokin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smokin.gif[/img]

RoReRi

[roreri]

And BTW these 300 gallon toke tanks come with a valve at the bottom, so I can drain out all the <font color="red">"</font><font color="blue">yabbies</font><font color="red">"</font> that come from the settling.

RoReRi

[Aggie03]

where did you get those tanks and what was the cost on them?

thanks

Brad

[roreri]

I found them at a salvage company that refurbishes them. I gave them a song and dance story of how I was doing research on alternative fuel for diesel trucks and he gave me 5 of them for 50 bucks apiece. It took me a while to find them, I called about 20 different “tank/drum” manufactures to get to this guy. I wish I could help you find them but since you are in Texas and I’m no where near you, about 1000 miles away.
You may have to do a little detective work to find the right place.

Clean refurbished toke tanks with valves that do not leak usually go for 75-90 bucks each. In my many different phone conversations with lots of dealers, I found one that wanted to sell me steel 55 gallon drums for 35 bucks each.

Be sure that when you plan you setup, you keep the tanks at least high enough off the ground to get a 5 gallon bucket under the valve.
That way you will not have any issues draining the yabbies off the bottom.

Good luck…
RoReRi

[ToddT]

I have about 45 of them available for the taking here in NE Louisiana. They were used for raw ingredients in ink. Many industrial facilities that use lots of chemicals use these. Unfortunately, there are no paper mills near College Station. That's where we see hundreds of them around here. Houston has a one mill left and Dallas has a small one in the Forney.

Around here, they give them away and folks use them in rural areas for garbage containers on the side of the highway.

[Lobstah]

Keep in mind that 300gal of veggie equals about 3000lbs of payload, or 1 1/2 tons.
Lot of weight for most trucks...

Lob

[Pu241]

Lobstah,

Me thinks your calculation is off a bit.
Vegi Oil floats on water so is less dense than water.
Water has a density of 8.33 lbs/gal (Steam, Babcox and Wilcox)
so 300 gallons of VO must weigh less than (300 gal x 8.33 lbs/gal)
approximately 2500 lbs.

Took me sometime but found some VO densities:
I would have bet that VO was much less dense than water, shows you what I know!
Anyway
Weast, R.C., et al. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1988-1989:
0.918 - 0.926 g/cm3
Subrahmanyam, M.S.R., et al.
Estimation of the Sharma and Thermoacoustic Properties of Vegetable Oil.
Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society. 71 (August 1994). 0.913 - 0.919 g/cm3
Hodgman, C.D. &amp; N.A. Lange.
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Cleveland: Chemical Rubber Co., 1924: 312-313.
0.915 - 0.928 g/cm3
Spectrum - Chemical, Safety and Laboratory Products.
Catalog.
Spectrum Quality Products, 1997-1999
0.910 - 0.920 g/cm3

Take the average of the range, then the average of the average and we get:
0.9175 grams/cm3 which -tranlating into something we all understand -
is about 7.65 lbs/ gal
making 300 gallons weigh about 2300 lbs
Still as you say a lot of weight for most trucks.

Still about 500 lbs more than I would have guessed!

For most of us, 300 gal of WVO would go a long way!
Could always make 2 trips.

I really like the 300 gallon tote idea though!
Thanks RoReRi!!!!!!!! ("Yabbies" - I like that!)
I hope one will fit between the wheel wells of my Postal Sevice truck.
Would even better if I could get 2 in there!

John

[ToddT]

I was thinking the same thing about the weight... figuring about 7.5#/gallon. Throw in 150# or so for the container, too. In the chemical business I deal with stuff as low as 6.5# to as high as 14# per gallon. Specific gravity makes a big difference!

As for the size of these totes, most are either 42" or 48" wide so fitting between the wheelwells shouldn't be a problem.

My plan is to have one stacked on top of the other in my shop. I will use a 55 gallon drum in the truck... roll it back to the "filtration station" and pump it into the top tote bin. That will be my main settling container. I may connect some gravity filtration between the two totes... stepping down from 20 micron to 10 micron and most likely to 5 micron. Hopefully with settling, the water will rise to the top and I won't have to worry about filtering it out.

[Pu241]

ToddT,

"International Janitor" that pretty funny!

I've worked with chemicals too.
Ever run across any flame retardants?
Now, those thing are dense, like 5g/cm3 which works out to something like 41.7 lbs/gal. The stuffs solid, so per gallon doesn't mean much!
But it is funny watching the "big strong" machine operator try an out lift the engineer, because the engineer is only carrying 2 of those "little" bags.
I digress!
So the totes are standard pallet widths, thought so, but you never know. So they could be placed on standard "speed" racks and stacked
2 or 3 levels if you had the heigth!

Like your plan, but I think I'd just pump out the 55 gallon drum from the truck to the top tote. A full 55 gal drum is heavy, or at least it is to me!
Could put a rough filter between the 55 gal drum and top tote to remove the some of "Yabbies" (love that term!), then there'd be less to have to settle out. I believe though that any water in the WVO will still settle to the bottom, WVO = 0.9175 and water = 1.000 g/cm3.
Just takes a little while when densities are close.

I "may connect some gravity filtration between the two totes... stepping down from 20 micron to 10 micron and most likely to 5 micron."

Might be able to filter even lower if you pump off WVO from the top of the top tote. Less "Yabbies" in the top layers, means won't clog filters any where near as fast! I'd like to go to a 0.5 micron if possible, only from the stand point that there are still pump failures/clogged injectors and other bad things that happen with regular diesel at the 5 micron standard. So I like to remove that as a possible source of problems when using WVO. Probably not necessary, but might make a difference, especially if the added cost of the filters isn't too much!

John

[ToddT]

Glad you like the "international janitor" bit, John. My dad started that phrase back about 20 years ago. I do specialty cleaining in heavy industry (mostly paper mills) and yes.. have done it in the US, Canada, Europe, Indonesia and Australia. Unfortunately, I just did the design work and didn't get to go to the Pacific sites. Someday...

I don't know what I was thinking about regarding the water.. sure it will drop to the bottom. We were just dealing with specific gravity.

My building has a loading dock and short ramp for rolling off the truck and into the building. But, you are right... very easy to pump out. I've even thought of using an open top drum (with lid in place during transit) with a washable screen about 6" down from the top. This would be good primary filtration.

Speaking of the chemicals... I am still interested in cutting back some of the grease with some surplus oil-based cleaners I have. I hate to use the word "solvent" but that's what they are. Everything has a 140 degree flash or better and in the past we have recycled the used product in a fuels program. They just filtered it down and added it to boiler fuel. But, a Ford/International PSD engine ain't a boiler.

As for the flame retardents, I'm getting into selling another company's fire fighting/fire retardent chemicals. But, it isn't as heavy as the stuff you are talking about. Hmm... glad I don't mess with that!

Todd T

[Ford_Forgotton]

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of the chemicals... I am still interested in cutting back some of the grease with some surplus oil-based cleaners I have. I hate to use the word "solvent" but that's what they are. Everything has a 140 degree flash or better and in the past we have recycled the used product in a fuels program. They just filtered it down and added it to boiler fuel. But, a Ford/International PSD engine ain't a boiler.

[/ QUOTE ]

Careful! Ford/International is VERY specific that you should NOT run "other oils" in the fuel system. They make it clear in the owners manual not to mix in used engine oil, tranny fluid and the like into your fuel.

Ford barely consents to Bio-Diesel, but they are pretty adament about not using other oils.