Will a centrigual filter from a large diesel engine be suitable for vegetable oil filtration?

Trev
I believe the filter units supplied with the old Gardners and Yanmars can fiter down to 10 microns,so should be more than suitable. But check with the supplier to double check that figure.
Regards
Greg

These filters need a high flow rate to get a good spin going so get a good pump

Dave
Ithink Trevor means the type where the operator supplies the turn power via a geared crank handle on the top. Thats the type I've been looking for, but not easy to come by these days as anyone who has one wants to keep it or a stupidly high price for it.
Regards
Greg

Thanks for the imput fellas! Today I checked out the diesel/injection specialists. The mechanic only knew of a "coalescing"(?) filter made by Racor. It used the fuel flow to spiral itself. Apparently it's "mostly used to seperate the water". I thought I heard somewhere that there was a centrifugal filter that actually cleaned the fuel. What I'm looking for is any unit that would clean the fuel without having to buy and replace filters...

[This message was edited by Trev from Canada on 22 May 2001 at 07:36 PM.]

I've been studying these, not to buy, but to copy for quick separation of biodiesel phases. And for removing water, both before and after processing. They're probably expensive, but may give you some ideas.
http://www.spinnerii.com/divisionmain.cfm?divid=6

There's another manufacturer that builds an air-powered one, but I can't locate the url.

V-P

Spinner II it's called. It's built to clean engine oil, and is driven by oil pressure. However, with a pump rated at 6 gallons per minute at 60-90 psi (eg. gear pump) a person can build a stationary filtration unit (the oil must be "thinner than 50 weight"). The smallest unit is supposed to clean about 1 gallon per minute and after several passes it cleans down to 1 tenth of a micron! (one pass will filter to one micron!) Apparently it's cleanable - no expensive filters to buy, no oil wasted that would be in the old bag filter. However, the salesman I talked to never heard of vegetable oil being run through it (vegoil has high wax content he said but he wasn't sure if that would be a problem or not).
Anybody have experience/knowledge regarding centrifuges? This fella said that he had 20 years experience in filtration and that using bag filters to filter down to the micron level is expensive, time consuming, and unreliable because of filter loading, blinding and consequential stretching. (FYI the centrifuge is abut $420 Canadian)

[This message was edited by Trev from Canada on 31 May 2001 at 06:40 PM.]

Hey man, I'm in. I would like to find out more about this centrifuge. Trev, where do I find out more about those centrifuges?

CalJoe, I checked out the url posted by Veggie Pup - the Spinner II website. I then called 1-800-231 SPIN (4437) and asked for a dealer in my area, who gave me more technical info...
Within the next couple of weeks or so I hope to visit a friend of a friend who said he'd show me how a centrifuge can be built that can filter down to 1 micron as the engine calls for it (in my case a generator). I plan to keep you posted.
For an experiment, I tried our cream seperator with 160 F oil that I took from the bottom of my tank. It had been filtered to 1 micron but the cream seperator was a little dirty inside after I ran it through. I don't know for sure if it takes out 1 micron particles or if my bottom of tank is dirty (Though I had rinsed it out). Someday I might try running my oil right off the filtration unit and into the cream seperator to check if it cleans better than my 1 micron filter bag. However, unless you like doing the dishes, cleaning the inside of the cream seperator (where the dirt accumulates) is tedious!

Anybody got experience with a meant-for-oil centrifuge?

http://weather.nmsu.edu/Teaching_Material/SOIL456/Sandseperator/sand.htm

Gotta check out this vortex seperator in action.
A vortex tube seems like the best way to do a quick seperation of particles and sand from waste vegetable oil. Very high RPMs can be achieved in a vortex tube.

Well I did some checking around today and found there are two dealers in my area that carry the Spinner II model 60 which will run 2 gal./hr. I didn't realize this before but the units are normally mounted to a semi truck and the oil is filtered as the rig motors down the road. The fellow I talked to explained how the unit could be mounted as a stand alone unit. How it works is it "polishes" a container of oil. You don't pump from one container to another via the filter but rather pump out and right back into the same container and the spinner filters a portion of that until the entire lot is clean. 40 gal. would take about 4 hours. Any way I hope to have one of these gadgets by tomarrow. They are only $360. I am planning to set things up so that I heat 20-30 gal. of oil to 250-300 deg. for about a half hour to boil off any residual water then run it through a paper cone filter like the restaurants use to knock it down to 30 microns. Then run it through the Spinner for about 4 hours at 150-170 degrees. The engineer I spoke with confirmed with me that it should do the trick even though it is a whole new application that he has never heard of. . Thanks Trev for the great idea.

Great to hear you are trying the centrifuge out. Unfortunately, it looks like I can't make the 6 hour trip to my nearest centrifuge dealer for another month so my centrifuge plans will have to be put on hold...in the meantime I'll work on my bag filter system. Keep us posted!

At 120 degs C the oil is really thin and the visible debris falls straight to the bottom of the tank. Don't forget to keep it stirring or you can get steam eruptions boiling it over.

It needs no filter socks. Draw off a few inches above the bottom. If using for SVO run it through the 10 micron filter straight into storage. For biodiesel react as it is. Settling and washing gets out the fine debris.

I have a closed lid with vent pipe condensed through a cold water bucket. This stops chip shop smells from upsetting neighbours.

A 2" bsp barrel lid welded into the drying tank bottom is handy. Much easier to squeegee gunk through a large hole.

I found a few more dealers closer to home who sell the Spinner II series. Model 25 (new model) is about $425 Canadian, does 1 gal/min. Model 60 is $600 Canadian, does 2 gal/min. In lab tests done with water-like amine, the model 60 is reported to have done equally well as a 1 micron absolute bag filter (with a regular 1 micron bag as a "prefilter") THIS TEST WAS DONE WITH THE CENTRIFUGE "SINGLE PASS"! (With more passes the centrifuges apparently filter enginge oil to about a tenth of a micron) These centrifuges were meant for large generators that run engine oil with metal contaminants 365 days a year. We are doing oil with food contaminants, so we should have no problems, a dealer said. "Centrifuges last a lifetime"...too good to be true???
p.s. 2 of 3 dealers had slightly used units that were at lower prices!

[This message was edited by Trev from Canada on 04 June 2001 at 12:16 AM.]

I have decided to get the model 60 because of the recomondation by the engineer I talked with at thier company. I agree with the pre filter idea. I will be heating the oil to 250 f/ 120 c to get rid of any moisture. That will be a perfect time to drain the oil from the container through a restaurant cone filter. That will bring it down to 30 microns. He said that would be fine. The only product that I will need to replace from that point on will be the paper liner and an O ring or two. You know, if this damn thing really works it could be the standard for economically and effectively filtering wvo

CalJoe, what did the engineer say that convinced you to go with the model 60? Dirt holding capacity compared to the model 25? Or was it the oil level device? I'm thinking of buying a used (demo) model 25 which is a little more than half the price of a model 60. I wonder how much dirt we'll get when we spin the c**p out of it? Over here, the smaller model should do me fine I think, if I filter batches each day as my generator runs (typically 4 hours/day to charge my batteries since I'm off the grid) with an automatic system that warms up the vegoil through a heat exchanger off the coolant. Theoretically, filtering 1 pass at 1 gallon per minute would produce 60 gallons of one micron oil per hour! Of course I could clean a 50 gallon drum real good (multipass) and have a pump automatically kick in at the end of the generator cycle to transfer the vegoil into the main tank...

The engineer told me that the unit wasn't designed for one pass usage and that they couldn't guarantee what the unit would filter down to. The spinner, he told me was designed to filter a sample of what is being pumped, and that over time the entire container will be affected by the spinner unit. My intention is to take a 40 gallon amount and run the pump and spinner for a period of 4 hours. That will be a suitable amount of time to filter the entire lot. I have not gotten one yet because it will need to come out of Texas. I plan on having it by this friday. Until then... Make that tuesday the 12th. Longer wait than I thought, but it is on its way

[This message was edited by CalJoe on 06 June 2001 at 05:02 PM.]

Trev could you let me know contact names and phone numbers for the spinners you're looking into. I have an Audi converted and a Mack in the Works but clean fuel seems the biggest problem. I'm in Nova Scotia now but I travel all the time so I don't care where the contacts are. Thanks

Peter Anson

Fatman, my two take care of all of Western Canada; I don't have the info handy at the moment, but a free call to Texas asking for the Canadian reps will give you them (one in Ontario for sure too). 1 800 231 SPIN (4437). By the way, what micron are you filtering down to now, and what kind of problems are you experiencing?

I don't know what microns I'm getting, just heating and using a paper cone filter. Not a good method. Check out this web for RCI. rcipurifier.com/diesel.html The Audi I have has a kit from Biocar in Germany. I went to visit George in Munich a couple of months ago.