At work we typically use a blend of MEK and toluene to soak/clean small parts. Typically we are cleaning off coatings or adhesives. We have to pay to dispose of this. I'm wondering if I couldn't filter it well through half micron filter bags and run it in my lawnmower, snow blower, walk behind leaf blower etc. These are all low compression carburated engines. To be on the safe side I could run fresh gas through them before seasonal storage. What do you guys think?

I suspect a low compression small engine would run on these if it had a carburetor that was equipped with an adjustable main jet to allow you to get the fuel/air mixture correct. The concern I have is that if these are being used as solvents then whatever they are "dissolving" will be incorperated directly into the fluid as a liquid, no amount of filtering is going to remove it, you would need to distill the stuff at a controlled temp to recover the clean solvents, hopefully the contaminants would be left in the still. I would be concerned that the dissolved adhesives might "gum up" the engine or carburetor if they are not removed?

The distillation is not all that difficult, it used to be done all the time back when triclorethane was used as the solvent in degreasing or flux removal tanks. The fluid was heated in the bottom of the tank unit and the clean solvent vapors moved upward and condensed on the parts being cleaned, then the contaminated condensed solvent ran off the parts and dripped back down into the bottom of the unit where it was again heated into clean vapor. Doing this with these highly flammable solvents would obviously require more safty precautions.

There was a discussion about this earlier.

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/ev...1001372?r=5101074472

I think the conclusion was that it could be blended with veggie oil..
Or "winter blend" veggie oil.

Perhaps using it in small quantities in your blend.

MEK is a pretty strong solvent.

Toluene is high octane motor fuel and is fine for most petrol motors, especially high compression motors where yo get to use the extra power.

I don't know about MEK or butanone though, it is probably a bit to volatile.

It would probably work better as an octane boost additive to fuel.

Young rev heads would probably be very interested.

Toluene should be very similar to gasoline, and might even be better than gasoline for long term storage of small engines as I'm doubting it would break down very rapidly.

I would worry about MEK and rubber seals.

And, of course, whatever is dissolved in the mix.

My concern was also dissolved solids but my guess is even if things got gummed up a simple soak in clean solvent would remove the buildup. I can get like 5-6 gallons every 2 months or so. The company pays a lot for disposal so they'd be glad to let me have it. Actually I could get them to use less MEK, toluene just takes longer to clean the parts that's why the MEK is in there but if solvent removal is free there is an incentive not to use it or use less. I've used clean toluene in the past as an octane boost on high comp engines with good success. I bought it right from work and mixed it with 93 octane for my 13.5:1 race motor, ran the same as race gas at less cost to me. I've used toluene many times in the past to clean up carbs etc. I think my main concern is what the dissolved solids might do in the combustion chamber but again that's pretty easy to clean on these little engines as well.

I've toyed with mixing it into my WVO or WMO but don't want to risk buildup in my IP or seal and hose damage. I have used old naptha in place of RUG though, we had a drum that we didn't need so they gave it to me to burn in the van.

Well I ran into my first issue doing this with my walk behind leaf blower. I had the intake valve stick open. I took the cylinder head off and found it was gummed with adhesive. This particular batch was pretty contaminated so it's no real surprise. I cleaned it up with clean toluene and got it running again with no problems. Ideally I'd set up a still to remove the adhesive solids but it's not worth the trouble for the little money I save. I've decided to run a percent solids on this mix and then cut it 50/50 with fresh gasoline, that should give me more time between gumming problems. I also asked the guys at work to just save me the "cleaner" waste solvent rather than dump it all into one container. The solvent I'll be getting from now on is from finally cleaning on the equipment, not the tank they soak really dirty parts in.

Other than that issue the waste solvent, about 80% toluene has been running really well in my lawnmower, edger and leafblower. They all start really easy and run with no smoke so far.