I recently found out that a seaport nearby uses vegetable oil in their hydraulic systems as it is biodegradeable if a spill occurs. From time to time they also have some to dispose of. I am not sure if it is dated or what causes the surplus. It is labled as "Non Food Grade". They guy who filled me in on this indicated that it does not have any additives and is pure vegetable oil and he does their hydraulic repair.

Is anyone familiar with this, has used it, and knows if there are any potential problems?

I realize that there are unanswered questions such as what plant the oil is pressed from, but I have not contacted anyone at the port yet.

If it were to titrate well, my biggest concern would be the metal particulates in the oil. Even though most hydraulic systems have very good filtration, there are still some microscopic particles that can still be in suspension.

It might be however, that if you were to turn this into biodiesel those particles would fall out with the glycerin layer, but that is a big guess.

Any metal contamination will fall out with the byproduct. Any that doesn't should be removed by subsequent washing/drying/filtering.

I would try to mooch a couple gallons and do a few test batches.

Good luck!

troy

Thanks very much guys. I realize the information I provided is sketchy, but I was mainly curious to see if anyone had any experience with this stuff. I don't think metal will be much of a problem as I filter to 1 micron absolulte before it goes into the storage tank and one micron nominal as it goes into the truck tank.

I hope I can put this together. My friend says they have about 25 55 gallon drums right now.

I've used a fair amount of the stuff, I use it in my 72" Toro hydraulically driven lawn mower, it is sold at turf supply outfits to golf courses and people who do large scale turf maintenence, it is inevitable that you will have a blown line sooner or later on these mowers and if you use regular hydraulic fluid you are going to kill a LOT of grass, with the veg hydraulic fluid you kill a LOT less if any, I have probably used 80-90 gallons over the last couple of years.

Sounds like a wonderful idea.

I know that is a problem with a lot of old sawmills, oil contamination.

Of course, I suppose the problem is whether the ambient temperature is high enough to keep it from gelling, although fractionating the oil might help with the gel point.

You may want to test some of the oil in your refrigerator or freezer.