How are you filtering your WVO?

[ak300td]

I've been searching around the various forums but I'm not finding a good cheap and clean way to filter WVO to 5 microns.

I'm inclined to use a bag filter in a housing so it can be plumbed neatly, but they seem to be pretty expensive.

Advice?

Thanks, Chuck

[MonsieurBon]

A sock filter shouldn't cost you more than $25, plus another $5 for building a housing for it.

You could also do some big-chunk prefiltering with a cheesecloth or some pantyhose, like when pumping to your collection tank.

You should also try to filter at the temperature your call will be operating at, as in more or less room temperature. This will keep fatty chunks from forming in your filters..

Or are you going to make biodiesel?

Good luck!

[coachgeo]

danalinscot sells plans for making filters for cheap. His stuff is HIGHLY reccomended.

See Item #3 on Dana's HOW TO plans web page. Look at his other pages for more info.

Sock filters down to 1 micron are $2 at http://www.mcmaster.com/

[djugurba]

what JMJ said- er, coachgeo... Dana's plans are straightforward and worth the nominal price- Parts are salvageable or cheap, and he's very helpful with email questions.
dont forget the http://biodiesel.infopop.cc board- all about biodiesel/wvo pages and pages on filtering...

cheers!

[ak300td]

Thanks for the info...

I plan to do the big chunk filter using t-shirt fabric and then gravity feed through a home-made bag filter housing at ambient temps. The goal is to have it plumbed tight so it doesn't leak everywhere and attrack bears (seriously). If it proves to be too slow a process, I was thinking of hooking my shop vac up to the bottom tank and creating a little suction from below.

MonsieurBon, (or anyone) have you built or seen a home-built filter housing?

Do you dewater, and how do you do it? Do you use one of the water-block paper filters?

My short term goal is 30% WVO, 70% diesel mixed in the tank. The longer term goal is a heated fuel tank in the trunk to run WVO in the summer (biodiesel start/stop) and biodiesel in the winter (diesel start/stop).

Thanks for the advice!

I've been doing about a 50-50 to 70-30 blends and they are working excellently. The car loves it and actually sounds quieter and smoother on it. When I runout of WVO and go to stright diesel, I wonder for a few miutes if something is wrong with my car it sounds so rough, but then I remember that there's no oil in there! To filter I use a 2 step system based on danalinscott's designs. He's great and I highly recommend following his instructions if you are new at this, it will prevent any small mistakes that could ruin an otherwise easy and enjoyable experience. Are you talking about on board filtering? I do all my filtering before it enters my car, only leaving the tinyest amount to be dealt with in my standard fuel filter. I run it through a bag filter(which I make myself and it's really cheap and easy per the above mentioned plans) and then a polishing filter to get the remaining little bits. Good luck and I h ighly reccomend the bidiesel infopop web site for detailed info and no bullsht.

[TonyFromWestOz]

I use a 5 micron bag filter with a insect screen strainer to remove the lumps.
Here is the Strainer, above the filter bag.
You will see that I am "cold filtering" in this case to separate the tallows from low melting point oils.
An immersion heater is used to melt the accumulated tallows then they get too thick. These are stored in open top drums, with resealable lids until I take them to have biodiesel made from them.

Temperature tonight ~16'C

[TonyFromWestOz]

The bag filter sits in a 20 litre oil drum, which has a bung in the side.
The filter is longer than the drum height, so an old sanding belt lifts the filter up.
The hole in the drum is lined with plastic cable sheath, to prevent the sharp steel edge cutting the filter.

[TonyFromWestOz]

From the filter drum, the cleaned oil goes to a cubee for further settling.

[TonyFromWestOz]

To prevent spilling the WVO when pouring into the filter, I made up this nifty pourer from a heater hose bend, passing thru a drum cap. A piece of tubing allows air into the WVO drums.

[ak300td]

Thanks Tony!

How many liters will pass throught your 5 micron filter before clogging? Are you finding the bags are washable and reuseable?

[ricali]

Filter bag from Greasel.com
Heated filter for car from Racor#490R1210 10 micron

[danalinscott]

Two cautions:
1"heated fitlers are most often limited by thermostats to temp around 40*F. This is because they are designed only to warm diesel fuel at low temps to de-gel it. In vegoil conversions one needs heat in excess of 130*F. Most "heated filters" do not have anogh capacity to do this at the rate needed for a vegoil conversion. Contact me directly if you need more info. I have been overwhelmed with new duties and have not had time to post.

2 Most bag filters cannot be safely washed and reused sicne they are made of synthetic materials that stretch when warmed and so loose the ability to maintain the original micron rating. Mine are made of non synthetic material. Be cautious about using vaccuum to increas filtering. Doing so usually results in sever ecompromise of the filtering ability of the bag filters. Again..this is because the fibers stratch.

My filter unit allows me to filter up to 30 gal per 24hrs with abuot as much time invested in tending as if I were simply filling up at the pump. It also has a dewatering capability..very important since water can destroy an IP. And it has a resivoir and pump so using vegoil fuel is easy. Cost to put together with brand new parts is aruond $100.

Dana
danalinscott@yahoo.com

[TonyFromWestOz]

Originally posted by ak300td
Thanks Tony!

How many liters will pass throught your 5 micron filter before clogging? Are you finding the bags are washable and reuseable?

ak300td,
The filters are good for 200+ litres of reasonably clean oil, if heated to ensure that tallow does not solidify on the filter.
I filter all of my oil hot, allow it to cool and then re-filter to separate the tallow. I believe that this also filters out more crud, as it is filtered thru the tallow and then the bag. When the bag is too thick with tallow, I drop an immersion heater in and melt it, filtering the tallow too, into sealable open topped buckets for my biodiesel supplier.

I can cold filter any amount of WVO, which has been filtered hot, without clogging the filter.

I have an endless supply of biodiesel byproduct (glycerol soaps) and wash the bag filters with that to remove the worst of the crud and oil. once it is free from oil I get Mrs to wash it in the front load washing machine on the hottest cycle. It comes out nice & clean.
These filters are also available in a mesh style, which is not affected by boiling water, so should not change it's micron rating over time.

I have only bought 7 of these filters ($8.50 ea) in the 4 years I have been using WVO. One was left in "wet" oil and went mouldy, one was left in contact with the immersion heater without enough oil cover and burned a hole, and the other was lost on one of our holidays. I have the other 4 and they still appear to be working well.
I have not needed to replace a vehicle fuel filter (other than from "crud" from the fuel tank blocking the pre-filter) in over 20 000km.

On holidays, I can pack the filter drum and filters, immersion heater and extension cord, along with a couple of clean oil drums and a dirty oil bucket, so that I can collect and filter oil while away from home.