Hi Everyone I've been making BD for about 5 months make 200gal a week and have $1500 for a upgrade I was going with another appleseed of 120gal & a 125gpm pump to match. Yesterday I located a 1000gal steel vertical tank that was used for water at a company that closed, he finally said $450 for the tank it has a dome shape top & bottom, size port on bottom unknown but the other 2 are 4" one located on the top and another on the side about waist high. For this size unit what would be a recomemded pump & or mixer? I also found 2 3hp mixers 240v with var-speed trans and impeller, explosion proof unit about 5' tall for $300 each can I use these instead of a pump? The current appleseed I have is 55gal I was going use it to heat my home made heating element made from 1.5 copper tubing that I have from a construction site.

Have you considered on of these? http://www.murphysmachines.com/biodiesel_processor.html

This is what you really want.
http://www.murphysmachines.com/MM500.html

You can get propane tanks for $150 each and they're 500 gallons in size.

The cost of my plans will save you at least twice that much money in "I didnt think of that" moments.

If you go big, don't screw around. Do it right the first time.

I did see these pics a few days ago I didn't put to much into it becuse of the space limit I have. Friday I'm picking a 60gal comprossor tank I bought for $60 to run it in parallel to my 55gal unit so I could at least get a 55gal drum of every batch. the 1000gal unit I looked at has a footprint of 6x6 and 8'high. Right now I'm working with a 10'cube, on a stackable rack I have 2 55gal drums & the 55gal unit after this weekend I'm going stack 1 wash tant put the 60gal tank in it's place. I figured if I run the unit at 90% cap I could get about 700gal of BD on a weekend in a 48hrs time frame. Is there something wrong with this size unit, it has a plate that reads 750psi or it's to dangerous one of this size?

You could just get a large wash/settling tank. This would allow you to push out 3-4 batches in one day and then settle and wash them all together.
DD

quote:

Originally posted by Dandy Don:
You could just get a large wash/settling tank. This would allow you to push out 3-4 batches in one day and then settle and wash them all together.
DD

Yours sounds like the most cost-effective suggestion that could be applicible to my operation....I'll have to keep that in mind in the future when I want to upgrade...

Thanks...

Charger,

I know very little about mixers. For a unit of that size you are going to want oil rated pumps if you want long life. www.gormanrupp.com

It will be hard to maintain your budget with the proper sized oil pump to turn the product over enough. I am guessing that you would need a pump that can do a minimum of 150 GPM, maybe higher with viscosity's like 10 WT Lube. 2x2 or 3x3 is the pump size I think you would want to consider. I would check with industrial pump outfits or oil jobbers to see if there are any used ones and before purchasing get the model #'s and explain to pump manufactor how much in ft of lift and head the pump will be handling, get the pump completly rebuilt with new impellor and mechanical seals if it will work. Make sure it has a bypass as well.

Good luck and let us know how it all works out.

I know of a place that has pumps used for diesel they range about $900-$1200 and are rated at 150-250gpm with 2" & 3" ports. The reason I don't go with the larger wash/settling tanks is beacause I use the acid/base method and take more time, if I only did the base only I would consider it.

thanks
chargerpr

I was looking at the HF website they have 10,200gph pump for just under $200 electric motor seperate but it has EPDM seal item# 10982-1806 can I use this or I should only use pumps with carbon ceramic mechanical seal? Based on my current setup if I go with a 900gal setup looks like the pump I should use min is 11500gpm if I go lower that just extends the my pumping time in which I could live with if it's not that far off.

One piece of advice, never buy a pump rated in GPH.

Secondly HF has a certain reputation that would make me run screaming, but that's just me. I would venture to guess that those ratings also are for water. I realise cold temps are not going to be an issue in PR but WVO is still much like 10wt gear lube so buy a pump rated for that as when you spec a pump you should spec it for the worst or thickest spec, not for Diesel viscosity, the finished product but for when its in its in raw material form.

Gorman Rupp, Blackmer, Dixon, Viking, Corkin, plus many others make good pumps for heavy materials. If you need to go real inexspensive then take a chance on the HF I suppose but get a good motor for it. Carbon is better then the other but not my first choice to begin with anyway.

If you know a good welder see if you can get more porting in the sides of that tank to increase mixing at different levels, that will save you money by using less methonal.

For overall safety I would like to remind all that commercial tanks alway have a containment area so if the tank springs a leak it all stays there at the tank area, not flowing into the creek or ???

Thanks Doug, right now I'm looking around I know of a commercial HD equipment store about an 1 drive from me I'll take a ride tomorrow and see what they have, what would be your fist choice of seal your prefer? I have about 2-4weeks before I buy the unit I'm going to spend a little time and make a CAD file is there a certain format people prefer here in this forum I have UG, Catia v5 and Autocad 2005? Since you ask for another port I could have another port added or make the port that's there even larger I know of a way I could inlarge a port to 6-8" and use the same port to mix at 3-4 levels and supply my heating element. I'm not to sure about the mixers I seen, I know they have 2 impellers about 2-3' apart but don't know how much I could crank it up.

Charger,

When seals are involved for BD the basic rule of thumb is to avoid Ferrous or "yellow" metals. You need to provide your pump supplier with a list of the chemicals you are going to be using in your process so that they may select a proper seal, for example Viton is considered bad for methonal, yet some companied use a type called "Viton Extreame" that works decent. I have customers that in worst case get 20K gallons through those before replacing when used with pure methonal. They also flush after each use however and do not keep methonal in the pump when it is not being used. Good maintenance is the key to a long pump life and it is amazing how many do not do basic stuff like flushing.

Port wise larger is not the key. Balance is the key so that the vacume/suction is equally spread across the ports. So as an example you can have ports of different sizes but if the hoses going to them are all the same size, length, and shaped equally then they will pull or push product fairly equally if they all operate from the same mainfold. Lets pretend you have a 3"x3" pump with a volume of 200 GPM.
You have a total of 6 ports, 3 in 3 out. I would supply each port with a 1.5" line with ball valves in line connecting to a manifold from the suction side and 1" or 1.25" lines feeding the discharge size coming from a manifold. The manifold itself would be a 4" necked down to a 3" and a 3" on the discharge side. I would place a pump discharge port near the bottom to kick up the material from the "heavy area" where stuff will settle when mixing is done, the lower suction side port at a place it can decant from after settling, so do not count your bottom 4" opening as one of these ports. The other sets of ports place at 2 different levels making sure that the top suction one is low enough not to suck air into your pump. This should force any metonal that would not be fully reacted back into the mixture to get the full value from it.

To recap I am not suggesting the amount of ports to be 3, more may be better in your size unit. I won't suggest a seal material since I have no idea what you are running chemicaly into your tank and how you are pre mixing it, let your local pump shop or whomever you choose to supply your pump determine that. The link I have above to the Gorman Rupp website has an excellent pump selection tool for sizing and seals that you can play with.

You could place the element in the feed or discharge line I belive, and like I said before I know next to nothing about the different mixers others use, I have always thought from basic fluid dynamics that fast enough turn over of the material should be sufficent, I think that the use of mixers is evolved from the use of undersized pumps and poor circulation of product. That opinion is not however shared by many here and I have ZERO real world experience in THIS process but fluid dynamics are pretty basic in the end.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.