Welder.
I know for a fact that it would be unwise to even show a rig like this to an insurance agent, my step mothers brother is an insurance agent and at a family gathering he wanted a tour, he was very impressed but told me to make sure my agent never sees any of my bio setup, as it is absolutely uninsurable unless it has a fire marshal seal of approval in writing, or it is insured with a high risk underwriter which could cost several thousand a year, so you may want to think twice before showing it to your agent.


I want to be able to insure my system for liabilty. That means I need it so super safe that even a paranoid insurance agent can see that a fire is IMPOSSIBLE.

I figure that indirect heating, redundant thermostatic control of heaters and double containment should be enought to reduce the insurance fees to something relatively painless.[/QUOTE]

WooHoo! Just got an email, my FF60 shipped today!

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The easy (and maybe only) way to reduce the insurance would be to put it in a separate not attached building like a small metal shed. Since just storing 40 gallons of VO in your structure would be against their rules, regardless of your processor.

I want to put it in a small heavy duty utility trailer, or in the bed of my truck.

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I know for a fact that it would be unwise to even show a rig like this to an insurance agent, my step mothers brother is an insurance agent and at a family gathering he wanted a tour, he was very impressed but told me to make sure my agent never sees any of my bio setup

Brewing bio involves methanol. I don't want anything to do with brewing bio. I'll be happy to buy bio and use it sparingly to warm up before switching to free WVO.

The fact that no meth will be involved in my project should reduce risk and therefore insurance fees.

1. No meth.

2. No direct heating.

3. Double containment.

I might have it trailer mounted, or in the bed of my truck.

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How long does it take to heat? Seems like it would take forever at these flow rates or am I way off? Tigafila

I don't know yet, but FPHEs are used in hydronics systems and SVO conversions, so it can't be too slow.

"I don't know yet, but FPHEs are used in hydronics systems and SVO conversions, so it can't be too slow.[/QUOTE]

I don't know either but at 3 gals/min. I would think it would be moving too fast to heat well but I could be way off base. Tigafila

A FPHE would work fine at that flow. But its a lot of extra complexity to solve a problem I solved in a much simpler way: If you put the heaters in a vertical pipe like mine, the elements are always fully submerged in VO so couldn't start a fire.

Even if you had a disaster and a hose blew off when you were away, the 1/2 gallon of VO in the vertical heater pipe would drain out, you would get some smoke, then the $8 element would burn out while safely enclosed, no fire, no VO there to ignite. Much safer and completely different than submerging an element in a barrel (or using a water heater) as many do.

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A FPHE would work fine at that flow. But its a lot of extra complexity to solve a problem I solved in a much simpler way: If you put the heaters in a vertical pipe like mine, the elements are always fully submerged in VO so couldn't start a fire.

Even if you had a disaster and a hose blew off when you were away, the 1/2 gallon of VO in the vertical heater pipe would drain out, you would get some smoke, then the $8 element would burn out while safely enclosed, no fire, no VO there to ignite. Much safer and completely different than submerging an element in a barrel (or using a water heater) as many do.

Until the theory of your system being 100% fail safe is tested and succeeds 10 out of 10 times, then I have to go with "a lot of extra complexity".

To be honest, I don't see having one extra pump, one small extra tank (for water/ethylene glycol) and a FPHE to be a lot of extra stuff and the concept doesn't confuse me with its extra complexity.

To each their own, I guess.

All I know is that throwing a bucket of boiling water into a barrel of hot veggie won't start a fire, but having a red hot piece of metal half submerged in it might.

Getting back to your system, I'm not sure that a blowout would necessarilly result in a safe failure (no fire). Have you timed how long it takes for a newly exposed element covered in hot veggie to fry itself to death? One other point is whether the blowout will drop the level of oil fast enough to quickly fill the entire length of heater pipe and lines with enough air to sustain a flamefront travelling from the red hot element down through the lines and out through the point of rupture.

Whether the flamefront was able to leap from the blowout/rupture to the pool of hot oil is another question that can only be answered by examining your fluid path and accurrately identifying the most likely weak spots where ruptures might occur. If a burning drop of oil had far enough to fall, it might be completely consumed before hitting the pool. If not, then...

You likely use T-stats to control the upper limit of how hot your HIGHT WATT DENSITY element gets your oil (flammable liquid). I will use a T-stat to control how hot my equally high watt density element gets my water (functionally inert liquid). If my oil leaks, it won't have any exposure to electricity or heat. If my water leaks, my oil still won't have any contact with electricity or heat. This is double failsafe, and BOTH fluid systems will be inside the same double containment vessel. They will only ever contact each other through the FPHE.

I may even use a float mounted low down inside the outer containment vessel to rise up lifting a rod to activate an alarm switch safely mounted somewhere up relatively high where neither oil nor water can contact the live switch (sealed switch anyway).

I've even been considering having a bottle of either argon, helium, or nitrogen peacefully blowing bubbles up through my cone bottom CF tower to enhance evaporative dewatering while simultaneously increasing safety and avoiding oxidising the veggie. That might be ridiculous overkill for the CF tank, but I may just bubble regular air in the same way to help dewater.

Maybe I should just save the inert gasses for my veggie tank...

I hope I didn't come off sounding like I was attacking anyone elses system. That wasn't my intention. We all have our own definition of acceptable risk.

There's a saying that "Discretion is the better part of valour" (ie pick your fights carefully and you'll survive more of them). In my case it's not so much discretion as it is cowardice. I've been seriously burned before and it wasn't as much fun as it sounds.

Getting fined, sued or tossed in jail for a few months isn't likely to be too groovy either. I have no idea what the minimum sentance is for the charge of: "Criminal Negligence Causing Death or Bodilly Harm", but I have no intentions of ever finding out the hard way...

Since my system is currently purely theoretical, it has that as an added safety feature too (LOL).

Hello,

This is a very valid conversation, although a little intense. There are three problems here and they kind of are not being clearly stated and then it becomes "How to be safe." The answer to that one is "Buy Bio at the pump" I think, here are the three main issues.

1. How do you avoid overheating an empty chamber as this could result in a large explosion? Here is a YouTube clip of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q

2. Is there a fire hazard with having an heating element submerged in oil?

3. Is there a fire hazard having a bare heating element exposed in pipe without oil around it?

For #1.

Although this video is quite dramatic, it doesn't really apply to our bio processors.
A. Both the AppleSeed and GL1 are open systems, not closed so they will always vent their pressure to the atmosphere avoiding the catastrophic pressure seen in the video.
B. The boiling point of oil is between 375f -550f depending on the oil - much higher than water. So its a lot lot harder to reach that temperature with electric heat - especially at 110v. If you have a drum heater or a submerged heating element in a 55 gallon drum, I am not even convinced you can even get the oil to its boiling point. If you were heating a small area and your pump broke down, perhaps that could happen, but I think the small amount of oil surrounding the heating element would evaporate into the system first and then your heating element would burn out - see #3.

For 2.
As for the problem of having the heating element directly submerged in the oil? I am not exactly sure of what the benefit is of having a water/glycerol jacketed heating element?. Heat is heat and if you have a flammable liquid (which we don't here) it will catch on fire at a certain temp given enough oxygen. A directly submerged heating element itself will not catch on fire. The electricity in the element is not going to jump out into the oil and cause a problem. I don't know for sure the design of commercial deep fryers, but at best their heating elements are enclosed in a hot plate that then contacts the oil chamber and I think that is because they do not want to have an exposed element exposed to consumers. For sure there is no water/glycerol jacket there. If I a missing something in this section please let me know. Perhaps your concern is the one below?

For 3.
An exposed heating element inside a pipe - caused after some leak. This will not cause a fire. The element will simply burn out within a few minutes. There have been way too many posts on various Bio boards where people have done exactly what has been described, turning on the heating element without pumping oil around it and poof, their elements burn out within minutes. They do not catch on fire.

I think the main hazards we should look out for in making Biodiesel:

1. Handling/Storing Methanol - proper handling and ventilation
2. Mixing in the catalyst.
3. Plumbing leaks/Spills. This last one has to be the most common and problematic as getting sprayed with hot oil is terribly painful. Also a complete leak where your tanks empty (hot or cold) is got to have happened, and I imaging trying to clean up 55 gallons of oil has to be a major pain in the arse. A double hulled system would be great to contain any spill, but I think many hours with a wet/dry vac is the more common solution.
4. Collecting Oil/Transferring Oil. In terms of spills, got to be the same problem as above.

I am not trying to put the kibosh on this conversation, but explore it more clearly. Safety is important. If I am missing something, please let me know.

Doug

I am not so sure that a heating element in a pipe is 100% safe. If you have a leak and a geyser (god bless the mess!), and you are not there to intervene, it could conceivably become a burner nozzle when the element is no longer surrounded by oil before it burns out. Anyone want to set up a test?

I think your over-thinking. Look at Sunwizard's set up. He heats the oil, it goes to the centrifuge, and then it dumps into the barrel. Its basically a controlled geyser. Its not igniting the oil. I feel responsible for starting people to worry when I asked my question about pumps/motors which was really a question about if a 'Gear Pump' in a methanol mix added any hazards I was unaware of. It is not apparently. As for igniting vegetable oil, its just not going to happen. Check out this video from Utah Biodiesel. If BioDiesel fuel will not catch on fire, neither will the oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ip3VFP-7I&eurl=http://...m/tutorialvideos.php

Safety is important and I am glad people are working on it, but lets not over OVER worry ourselves or other people as well. An electric heater element will not ignite Vegetable oil or Bio Diesel. There are other hazards to deal with home brewing but not this one.

However, if you do see a geyser of hot vegetable oil, stay away or cut power from far away. The scalding you will receive is a much bigger danger than anything else.

Doug

I think this safety stuff should have a thread of it's own, if somebody wants to start a safe centrifuge thread have at it.

Doug, Graydons video starts with room temp bio, not hot veggie. It also uses short spurts of torch heat, not constant contact with red hot steel. Apples and oranges.

You didn't "start anyone to worry". Anyone who waits for other people to start talking about safety shouldn't play with potentially dangerous stuff.



Fabricator, yeah okay enough safety stuff. I was only responding to the stated issue and other peoples input. Hopefully we can get past this sub-issue.

Also an age old principle should always be kept in mind, K.I.S.S.

Can anyone recall or am I thinking of some other board, were there not some pictures of someones CF rig where they had the water heater elements piped right inside the CF circulating tank. Seems like that would alleviate worries of leaking as it would leak into the CF tank. Would the heater element in the pipe in the tank burn up as long as there was oil in the tank? I know one person who just tosses an electric heater element directly into outside drums behind restaurants A/C cord an all. And I've seen plenty of deep fryers where the element is smack in the oil, no liner no nothing. It was here I got reminded that oil doesn't conduct electricity very well.

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Also an age old principle should always be kept in mind, K.I.S.S.

I think that acronym stands for "Keep it Safe & Secure", right?

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Originally posted by welder:

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Also an age old principle should always be kept in mind, K.I.S.S.

I think that acronym stands for "Keep it Safe & Secure", right?

Close, I have it tattooed inside my eyelids, "Keep It Simple Stupid".

A heater element can boil the VO, but it still won't ignite unless enough of the VO reaches the auto-ignition temp of >600F.

Here would be a simple test, take a water heater element mine is a 4500w 220v run at 110v = 1125w, and put it halfway submersed in a small bucket of VO. See if it will ignite. I did this with mine and it won't ignite. It makes some smoke. The next test would be to see how long it takes when almost fully exposed to burn out and if that could ignite a pool of VO below it. This would test the worst case of an exposed element in a barrel, say you were draining the barrel and forgot and left the element on. I have read many accounts of people doing this and they still didn't ignite the VO when they burned out the element.

Actually, I think that the worst case scenario you could test for would conincidentally be exactly what would happen in my setup and I believe in Sunwizard's setup.

Have the element up to temp while submerged, then remove all oil from the element. This leaves a film of oil on the element. It might be true that it takes 600° to autoignite oil. That sounds high enough to be unnattainable. However, I don't think that it is. I'd be interested to know just how hot a water heater element can get before it burns out. If it is more than 600°, then we have a potential for a fire.

I've thought about this before, and entertained the thought of putting a pressure switch on my rig. Basically when the pressure in the line exceeds a certain amount, it closes a switch and juice goes to the heater. I'd think that anywhere between 5 and 20 psi would work since pressure is lower when just recirculating to heat without going through the CF.) The only problem with this is that pressure switches are not cheap.

Anyone know of a cheap pressure switch?

I am about to get my centrifuge going this weekend and have a few basic questions. I have read through the posts and just wondering what pressure and temperature most are running? Also does everyone cycle the oil a while to get it hot before running it through the centrifuge or can you just turn it all on and let it heat as it goes. As it is now I don't have a bypass around the centrifuge to do that but can add one since I am just now putting it all together. If so what temperature do you get the oil to before letting it run through the centrifuge?
Thanks in advance
Rusty