I mixed some VO with 5% water and a few drops of detergent and shook it to see how long it will keep water emulsifed in VO... so far it has stayed emulisfied for a couple of months...last week I even tried heating it about 180f to see if the water would drop out of the mix... but it didn't... mixing water and fuel is nothing new... lubrizol has been selling a product called purinox for several years... it is a 80% diesel 20% water emulsified fuel... it was developed by Caterpillar in the 80's.. it was designed to reduce NOx emissions by reducing peak combustion temperature and improve combustion by the water exploding the droplets into a finer mist... Sine higher NOx is the only complaint with biodiesel I've wondered if andone has tried using emusified water to lower the NOx

Very interesting. I wonder if this opens a whole new avenue of dealing with water in VO - instead of settling it out, add detergent and emulsify it. Interesting... not that I'd be the one who wants to try it :-)

!!??
I thought we were trying to keep water OUT?
are you suggesting running a 5% water mix INTENTIONALLY through your IP??
cavitation much??

Purinox website

quote:

PuriNOx™ Technology is a low-emission diesel fuel system that enables Lubrizol's fuel marketer and distributor (blending) partners to provide a finished, pollution-reducing diesel fuel product to their end-user customers. Partners use a special blending unit developed by Lubrizol, along with normal diesel fuel, purified water and Lubrizol's proprietary PuriNOx additive chemistry to produce a well-blended, safe-to-use, "water-in-diesel" fuel emulsion (An emulsion is a liquid mixture in which a fluid or fluids is suspended within another).

This came up in an earlier discussion on suspended water/cavitation. It made me curious about how such a fuel could possibly not cause cavitation in an IP. So I sent an email to Lubrizol asking if PuriNOx might cause cavitation damage to an IP as it passed through.

Silence....
After a week I asked this question again.
No reply....

On the third try I asked "Will PuriNOx harm my engine?" and was answered within a day.

The carfully worded answer essentially said no damage to ENGINES had been noted during testing or use by those using the blend.

Technically an IP and injectors are considered an engine "accessory" and not "part of" the engine.
So technically even if IPs do experience cavitation damage there is no lie being told here.

I then asked for referrals to three current users of PuriNOx.

Silence...again.

In every referrence I can find to this product the subject of discussing IP or inector wear/damage is very carfully not mentioned.
It reduces diesel emissions...period. And that is what is stressed by the sellers of the blending equipment.

Never ANY claim it will not signifcantly shorten the life of injectors or IPs.

In some situations the replacment of IPs and Injectors is considered a maintenence exepense. And I suppose if I HAD to use diesel engines where they would not be allowed without lowering the NOx emissions I would probably accept the cost of replacing IPs and injectors every 10-15 oil changes without a wimper.

But ASSUMING that IPs are not damaged by suspended water simply because a product is sold that incorporates water in diesel fuel defys logic.

Lets say this is the case with 20% water emulsified in....

quote:

And I suppose if I HAD to use diesel engines where they would not be allowed without lowering the NOx emissions I would probably accept the cost of replacing IPs and injectors every 10-15 oil changes without a wimper.

Then in THEORY with a 20% water emulsified in with the diesel or vo or bio or whatever...
if you changed your oil every 3000 miles *10 oil changes that is 30,000 miles of life out of your Injector pump/injectors.
so if you had only say 5% water emulsified and changed your oil every 3000 miles perhaps you would be able to make your IP last 4 times longer or 120K
Or say you had only 1% water emulsified,perhaps you could expect 20 times as many miles 30,000K * 20=600,000 miles.

I would be happy with anything over 200k...
Even ford says of thier new powerstrokes that they are designed to go somewhere around the 200k mark.

Dana's post says it all...

several legit technical questions and general inquiries ignored....

One negative question asked implying that the asker might not use their product and WOW A RESPONSE.

If you can't read between the lines....."We don't have any time for customer service but please buy our product even though it is probably damaging to your engines health"

Isn't this the surgeon general's warning all over again? This product is bad but buy it anyway?

The way I look at this product, is If its SO good, (and cuts the cost per litre to the fuel makers as 20% is water ie, 'Watered Down' fuel hence more possible profit for them...) Why isnt it in every filling station world-wide??

VERY simple answer...

It aint all its cracked up to be, Must be draw backs-- IP and Injector excess wear/damage sound the most likely candidates...There's No free Lunch...

Dana is speculating that since he didn't recieve answers to his questions that the water emulsification has some dammage issues.. I think something more definative is need for proof before we can determine that the fuel does damage to the injection system. I have talked to CAT mechanics who worked on the original tests back in the late 80's (a little side note... Stokton CA is the birthplace of Holt and San leandro CA is the birthplace of Best. In the 1920's the 2 companies merged and formed Caterpillar. Since this is where it all started the local dealer "Holt" often gets to work on experimental engine projects). A-21 is the orginal name of the emulsified fuel, Cat owned the patents and it was tested extensivley by Holt arround the sacramento area in trucks and stationary engines. The Cat engines at the time of testing use a robust in line injector pump (identical to the benz / bosch) all the mechanics I talked to (there were several) reported no ill effects from the emusified fuel. In fact the combustion chambers on these engines were much cleaner than the normal engines and because of the cooler combustion temps the internal components were said to have lasted longer. Sorry but I don't have the specifics on this.. Emusified water may actually help prevent Coking.. I also think emusified water is different than suspended water since the droplets are better intigrated into fuel.. I have a listroid that I'm planning on testing the emusified fuel in.

quote:

Originally posted by Fattywagonman:
... I also think emusified water is different than suspended water since the droplets are better intigrated into fuel.. I have a listroid that I'm planning on testing the emusified fuel in.

You may have hit the nail on the head here John. Actually Sounds like you and Dana might agree again LOL. You say this water blend fuel contains emulsified water. It is good to hear it may not cause wear problems on IP's. Dana has concerns if the fuel has suspended water in it cause this is known to cause IP problems.

Maybe that is the question to ask... Does their fuel have any suspended water? I am assuming there is a technical difference between suspended and emulsified. Like droplet size?

quote:

Originally posted by Fattywagonman:
.... I have a listroid that I'm planning on testing the emusified fuel in.

What do you plan to use as the emulsifing agent John?

There are two types of emulsions.
Oil-in-water, and water-in-oil.
The latter was what Lubrizol's Purinox system created.
This is, as far as I know, difficult to create, as a stable emulsion, and difficult to know for sure which you have - so best not to fool around with it. Use a multi stage approach in the acquisition, storage,settling, prefiltering and onbaord filtering.
1 - get good quality oil direct from fryer or cold press, lids on, not from dumpster,
2 - blend to even out quality from various sources
3 - settle at least 2 weeks at room temperature and avoid any mechanical stirring (eg dumping in more oil; stirring up what has already settled) or convection currents (direct immersion heating and band heater at base of drum, etc. to be avoided); do a hot pan test to check samples for water after settling period, prefilter to the level you are comfortable with and which gives good on-board filter life, consistent to what is mounted as on-board filtration. Use an onboard filter that is at least as fine a filter as the original diesel filter.
Use an onboard water separator and water separator type filter such as Racor Aquablok II.
4 - - use as soon as possible after collection don't store oil in direct sun, and try to keep containers full to minimize exposure to air - to help prevent oxidation and absorption of moisture from air, especially in humid environments (vegetable oil is hygroscopic. Keep tank full onboard, and don't leave in tank too long - if storing and not using the engine, empty system of the WVO and fill system with diesel fuel and run it on diesel for an hour or so before storage. Remove and install a fresh SVO filter before storing.

I would not fool around with trying to create a water-in-oil emulsion. If you want to reduce NOx numbers, advance the timing a few degrees.

Ed

Let's talk about assumptions.
(Read all the way through..no offense is intended here)

HeThis one is not very logical.

quote:

if you had only say 5% water emulsified and changed your oil every 3000 miles perhaps you would be able to make your IP last 4 times longer or 120K
Or say you had only 1% water emulsified,perhaps you could expect 20 times as many miles 30,000K * 20=600,000 miles.

I do not believe that there is ANY evidence..or hint of evidence that this might be true. It is therefore a HUGE assumption.

But I have made a few assumptions myself in this discussion.

1.That all water/fuel emulsion levels will cause cavitation damage. Until Ed B. suggested that high water..large droplet emulsions may create less cavitation than very low water emulsions I assumed that the more water present the more damage would occurr. My assumption was no more logical than the one I quote above.

NOTE: I misunderstood What Ed was saying as noted in a later post.

2.That people trying to sell something choose to NOT answer questions with answers likely to result in fewer sales. I think I may keep believeing this one.

"Until Ed B. suggested that high water..large droplet emulsions may create less cavitation than very low water emulsions"

I did not actually suggest that, Dana, unless I miss your meaning, perhaps. In fact, I don't really know what you mean in the statement above.

When I say "water-in-oil" emulsions, and "oil-in-water" emulsions, I am not refering to percentages ("high water,large droplet, low water"?).

It refers to the way the emulsion is formed...water molecule surrounding oil molecule - that's a problem.
Lubrizol was creating, IIRC, a stable water-in-oil emulsion (oil surrounding water). So, in that case, the water was not in contact with the metal of the pump, a fairly high percentage of water could be used; and again, IIRC, the water would turn to steam in the combustion process, shatter the oil, and you got smaller droplets, cleaner burn, etc. (this is all from a reading of the Lubrizol info a few years ago, going from memory - how well Purinox works, I have no idea, but I think that was the idea of it.

Personally, I think taking higher percentages of fresh, clean, treated water and mixing it into diesel fuel, is not the smartest thing to be doing with that water!

In any case, for the average person to try and create a water-in-oil, stable emulsion, or to think or guess that that is what they have or have created, without knowing for sure, and assuming it'll be stable in the tank even if they succeed in creating it, would likely be a bad idea.

Worth a read. Their claim is that their additive, and their machine, is what makes it work and not harm the metal surfaces of the pump.

[URL=www.energy.wsu.edu/ftp-ep/pubs/renewables/PuriNoxl.pdf ]Purinox article. [/URL]

Ed your answering some of my questions.

For other readers... if I remember this right- an "Emulsion" is a molecular level adherence of two or more things that usually wont adhere at that level. Some agent is necessary to make them adhere. For example usually you cant get two negatively charged things to adhere to each other, but if you put something between them that both will attract to..... then they become adhered. Well that something in this case is the "Emulsifier"

Soooo- with that in mind..... if that emulsifier creates a situation where the water in bondage to the veg oil, no longer has all the properties of water, or at least wont let it react in typical ways.. thennnn it is entirely possible that the cavitation issue is eliminated. Oil surrounding water.. as Ed Beggs describes might just be such a change.

Soooooo.. why is it not on the market? Then again why is not more Vegoil fuels not on the market?

One side comment. No matter what I would still think we want to remove ALL THE WATER from WVO before using it as fuel because that water has who knows what dissolved in it such as acids, sugars etc. Once the oil is dry then using an emulsifier for blending in water would be coool.

the problem with emulsions is how to ensure stability. This might work great as long as the stuff stays emulsified- but if it drops out as free water, the risks become huge.

Mark

That's right Mark, and that is what I am trying to convey here. Don't bother with it.
Purinox maybe, if you have the fresh water (?!?) and if you want to buy the machine and the additive for the $100,000 or whatever it costs - but don't go playing around with trying to make emulsions on your own.

I'm not suggesting that anyone run out and start adding water to their VO... I'm just sharing the results of some interesting test I've been performing... I took some good quality WVO and added about 5% water to it... normally the water settles out of the VO.. so I added a few drops of some degreaser / detergent to the VO water mix... I shook it up and have been amazed that the water has stayed emusified for the last couple months... I think that dewatering is one of the difficuties of gathering VO on the fly... emusifying the water instead of trying to remove it may hold some promise for dealing with potential suspended water. There may also be benefits of decreased or elimination of coking.. I tried using an ultrasonic electric tooth brush and it was very efective for mixing. As far as I know not many folks have been thinking about emusifying the water... so maybe this is a bit of a new idea... I plan of running some of the emusification in my listroid for testing...

As for Ed's quote

quote:

If you want to reduce NOx numbers, advance the timing a few degrees.

Ed you have this backward... if you want to reduce NOx you must retard the timing ... not advance it

The [URL=www.energy.wsu.edu/ftp-ep/pubs/renewables/PuriNoxl.pdf ]article [/URL] you linked to Ed does not address cavitation damage..and though it indicated that a study of over 500 off orad engines run on the emulsion is underway...in 2001?..no results from that study seem to be available. I would think that if Purinox had considered the studies results positive they would have make them VERY available.

As to why this fuel is not widely used...it may simply be becuase up to a 20% reduction in power is exprienced...and it costs MORE than standard diesel fuel.

Sorry I misunderstood what you were stating Ed.
I am making a note of it in the post.

Yes there is some reduction in power... but you are adding free water to the fuel.. orginal tests were done with naptha / water emusion... now they use diesel / water emulsion... I have been inside the container that does the mixing.. Ramos oil does it at there facility in Dixon CA... it's nothing fancy.. just some pumps and flow meters.. Just because they didn't post results doesn't automatically mean they were negative.. I do know there was a minor problem with corosion on a spring in the cummins truck engines... but it was very minor... Dana I'm curious if you have any personal evidence or eperience with IP failure due to cavitation while using VO as fuel? Please notice that I said VO as fuel.. I've seen your info on cavitation with diesel fuel.. also you seem to be convinced that suspended water and emusified water are the same thing... I'm pretty sure this is not the case.. and it is possible that the water / VO emulsion may not cause any damage at all... I have a water jet machine that uses a piston pump to pressurize water to over 50,000 psi... it has operated over 10,00 hours and it doesn't have any cavtitation issues.