I thought it would be a good idea to have one thread to cover this topic. I am doing tests with oak and walnut chips/shavings. I just built a tower from 2" pvc that is 24", my flow rate is 500ml/min. I am going to post some pictures at one hour increments. If anyone else is trying this please share your test results.

This is after one hour of filtering. The sample on the ledt is raw biodiesel, the right is after the first hour. This is using the oak chips.


Test2.JPG (45 KB, 53 downloads) Test2

500ml per min for 1 hour is 30 liters that went through the tower. How much are you filtering? Are you putting clean back in the dirty tank or moving from dirty tank to clean tank?

The right is now at two hours.


I am filtering 15 liters. I am putting the clean bd back into the dirty.

I quit responding to the idea of using wood chips as a filter for biodiesel. My results were that wood chips are a great medium for filtering BD. I continue to do it.

It is not profitable for anyone to promote this idea, so it has kind of fallen off the radar screen. Anyone else still doing it?

I appreciate your effort and by all means keep posting your results.

Last pic for the night. The left one is from 1 hour, center at 2 hours and the right is at 3 hours. I don't see much improvement from 2 to 3 hours. I will do a shake um test and post the results tomorrow.

There is a cellulose thread started by Jehu as well as the ecopure thread. They have lapsed a bit which is a pity as this seems a very promising method. What kind of oak did you use?

It would be intersting to compare different types of oak against red oak which has a very open grain structure compared to other oaks and was the origional oak used for this application.

Somehow my serious posting about cat litter was modded away, but this wood based product deserves a 2nd look. Cat's Best OkoPlus

Not disappeared, moved to a subsection.

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Somehow my serious posting about cat litter was modded away, but this wood based product deserves a 2nd look. Cat's Best OkoPlus

No indication if it is soft or hardwood. Softwood don't work.

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Originally posted by Ant:

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Somehow my serious posting about cat litter was modded away, but this wood based product deserves a 2nd look. Cat's Best OkoPlus

No indication if it is soft or hardwood. Softwood don't work.

OH, Ant,
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the soft woods. The Fir shavings I've been using work quite well.

-Dave-

are you try to remove water or soap or both?

I've not tried filter with wood chips but I make them in quantity.

does one type work better than another?
soft woods? pine, fir, western red cedar, aromatic cedar?
hard woods. oak(red or white), maple(soft or hard), walnut, exotic(IPE, TEAK, mahogany)

-dkenny

dkenny,

I have used red oak with great results, maple with good results and lyptus with good results. I think the sweet spot is red oak.

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The Fir shavings I've been using work quite well.

Really? What did you do and what happened? Did you not have a problem with saps and contaminates leaching out into the bio?

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I have used red oak with great results, maple with good results and lyptus with good results. I think the sweet spot is red oak.

Did you try other oaks?

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Originally posted by Ant:
[QUOTE]
Really? What did you do and what happened? Did you not have a problem with saps and contaminates leaching out into the bio?

My tests using Fir are documented in the ecopure thread. I didn't do any tests checking for saps or other contaminates, just water and soap. I haven't seen any funky emulsion layers, settled deposits, or anything else "visibly".

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Did you try other oaks?

No, I have a cabinet shop and I use only the shavings of wood that I am currently using in projects. I have some ash (very similar to white oak) lumber at my house from which I could make some shavings, but I really don't want to waste energy just to do tests.

I recently did a large job with clear yellow pine. I am not even going to try to use those shavings -- just a hunch, but I believe conifers will probably add as much to the BD as it removes.

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My tests using Fir are documented in the ecopure thread. I

I'll have to go back and check I forgot about them. Remebered some problems others had had with softwwods.

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o, I have a cabinet shop and I use only the shavings of wood that I am currently using in projects. I have some ash (very similar to white oak) lumber at my house from which I could make some shavings, but I really don't want to waste energy just to do tests.

Fair enough. If you could list woods as you use them so we could build up a picture of how they all work it would be good for us all.

Hi Guys
How can you tell when the woodchips are exhausted and how do you dispose of them after use?