Recycled oil

[Jeepsinker]

Alright, so I started a test group today. My control is WMO cut with approximately 25% off-road diesel. I used three quart mason jars for the test group with 1/2 quart of the control in each.
Jar#1: to the control I added 1/4 quart of xylene and sealed the lid tightly, then swirled for ten seconds to distribute the solvent evenly.

Jar#2: To the control I added 1/4 quart of naphtha, then swirled for ten seconds and sealed the lid tightly.
jar#3 To the control I added 1/4 quart of odorless mineral spirits, then swirled for ten seconds to distribute solvent evenly and then sealed lid tightly.
I chose to seal the containers not to keep other contaminants out, but to keep solvent evaporation to a minimum. This is in hopes that it will help the solvent do it's job and put all three jars on a level playing field because the three solvents used do all have different evaporation rates.
In the morning we will see if there is any progress to speak of.

 

[jbayer]

Waste motor oil versus used motor oil.

Technically there is a difference, especially if your a commercial business in how you label it.

This is true in FL too.

http://www.midwestenvironmentalservices.com/articles/0312.pdf


Difference Between Used Oil & Waste Oil



Did you know there is a difference between used oil and waste oil? EPA
inspectors find that used oil generators, in some cases, are incorrectly labeling
their used oil as waste oil.

Midwest Environmental Services, Inc. notes that Hazardous waste regulations
define “used oil” as any oil that has been refined from crude oil, or any
synthetic oil that has been used and, as a result of that use, is contaminated by
physical or chemical impurities. Examples of use oil can include: used motor
oil, used hydraulic fluid, used transmission oil, used cutting oils and used
coolants. Once you can no longer use the oil, you need to have it properly
recycled by using facilities such as Midwest Environmental Services, Inc.
owned and operated Used Oil Processors in Cincinnati, Ohio (Klor Kleen) and
Charlestown, Indiana (Midwest Resource Recycling Center).

On the other hand, “waste oil” is off-specification product oil that you can’t
use, or decide not to use, and want to dispose. This is oil that has never been
used. Waste oil is not defined in the hazardous waste rules. Examples of waste
oil can include bottom cleanout waste from product oil storage tanks, product
oil spill cleanup or other oil wastes that have not been used. Additionally,
waste oil must be evaluated to determine whether any hazardous waste
characteristics apply prior to disposal.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Alright, so I started a test group today. My control is WMO cut with approximately 25% off-road diesel. I used three quart mason jars for the test group with 1/2 quart of the control in each.
Jar#1: to the control I added 1/4 quart of xylene and sealed the lid tightly, then swirled for ten seconds to distribute the solvent evenly.

Jar#2: To the control I added 1/4 quart of naphtha, then swirled for ten seconds and sealed the lid tightly.
jar#3 To the control I added 1/4 quart of odorless mineral spirits, then swirled for ten seconds to distribute solvent evenly and then sealed lid tightly.
I chose to seal the containers not to keep other contaminants out, but to keep solvent evaporation to a minimum. This is in hopes that it will help the solvent do it's job and put all three jars on a level playing field because the three solvents used do all have different evaporation rates.
In the morning we will see if there is any progress to speak of.

You could look at my YouTube videos for this and save yourself a lot of time and effort
Blending Solvents with waste Vegetable Oil to Make VO Blend Diesel Fuel
While my experiments in that video were with vegetable oil, in later videos I show it applies to motor oil. More significant to your investigation is another video I made,
Making Translucent WMO Blend Diesel Fuel
I am showing you these links not to discourage you, but to advance your work, which I believe has value.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Thank you for posting links to your videos. They were very informative. And it certainly saved me some wasted time and money, now i know that there are no alcohol based solvents that will help me.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Checked on the experiments today, zero stratification. I'm not surprised really, but all three seem to be good solvents. They are all equally fluid and all three have close to the same amount of sediments in the bottom. Surprisingly, the mineral spirits seems to have settled out slightly more fine sediment than the xylene or the naphtha. I went ahead and added 1/3 quart more solvent in each jar. I have to do more research and possibly try different solvents, but I may also be able to accomplish my goal by super-saturating the UMO with solvent to get the carbon to drop free, and then cooking the solvents off leaving just clean oil. This is going to take a lot more time, trial, and error than I thought. It may even take several chemicals added in different stages. I'm thinking I'll have to find something that binds with the carbon molecules, then find something that will make that drop free.

 

[wdbtchr]

I've been considering "washing" umo with water and soda ash for a while. The soda ash would neutralize any acid and I'm thinking solubles would remain in the water after settling. It would be simple to decant the water later. Heating and agitation would probably help speed up the exchange. I don't know what the emulsifiers and detergents are added to motor oil and if they would react with water but might work, worth trying a few samples.

This is the kind of stuff I think about in the wee hours of the night when I can't sleep because of my arthritis is killing me.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Give it a shot! Somebody has to figure this out, and the more people that get to experimenting, the more likely we are to have success. I just want to get all the dissolved solids out, that's my goal. I don't think the additives and detergents and such are going to pose much of an issue for us.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

I have tried adding solvents in stages, such as gasoline at 20%, after 2 months of settling to remove all of the sediments, then separating them out, then adding a polar solvent, such as acetone, has healed more precipitation of carbon. Also, blending the WMO experiment with a similar WVO experiment resulted in another dramatic precipitation event, which the video above on translucent blends was about.

 

[wdbtchr]

Give it a shot! Somebody has to figure this out, and the more people that get to experimenting, the more likely we are to have success. I just want to get all the dissolved solids out, that's my goal. I don't think the additives and detergents and such are going to pose much of an issue for us.

The emulsifiers and detergents were added for the very reason they give up problems with the solids NOT separating. If you are old enough to remember nondetergent oils you will remember poking a stick in the oil drain to get the oil to flow when draining. High Detergent oils hold the carbon and sludge in suspension so it will be carried out during oil changes. Thinning the oil probably doesn't hurt it as fuel but I can't help wondering how a solvent like acetone or MEK would effect the lubricity of the fuel as far as the injector pump is concerned. I'm just trying to figure out how to get the detergent to "let go" now that it's job is done. Otherwise I think we will never get the oil to separate to the level we want.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Ok, I see what you are getting at. And as far as lubricity goes, my thought was to let the solvent do it's job and then cook it off leaving only a diesel/oil blend because the other solvents all evaporate much faster than diesel or kerosene.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

The emulsifiers and detergents were added for the very reason they give up problems with the solids NOT separating. If you are old enough to remember nondetergent oils you will remember poking a stick in the oil drain to get the oil to flow when draining. High Detergent oils hold the carbon and sludge in suspension so it will be carried out during oil changes.

So far the additive package, or detergents, etc. has not posed a problem; however, some injectors that get coked from burning WMO come out yellow, not black. I believe this yellow color is sulfur, and sulfur might be the main ingredient in the so called "additive package" in motor oil.

Thinning the oil probably doesn't hurt it as fuel but I can't help wondering how a solvent like acetone or MEK would effect the lubricity of the fuel as far as the injector pump is concerned. I'm just trying to figure out how to get the detergent to "let go" now that it's job is done. Otherwise I think we will never get the oil to separate to the level we want.

The lubricity issue of solvent based-waste oil diesel fuel blends has been discussed many times on many forums. The resolution of the issue go to recognizing that lubricity in oils is a function of viscosity. Since an 80-20 blend of waste oil to gasoline is at least twice as viscous as diesel fuel, then it should therefore be twice as lubricious as diesel fuel.

 

[TehTDK]

Since oil is made up of long chain hydrocarbons (READ: CARBON), you will need something that binds to carbon, but does not break any of the existing carbon chains. Good luck! That's why the 'big boys' simply re-distill it, sometimes call cracking oil. The resulting product is not just oil, but everything from asphalt to vapors.

And it doesn't smell very healthy or nice >.<. I know, since I am living less than 4 miles from one of the largest refineries in northern europe.

 

[Jeepsinker]

You think that smells bad? Try living downwind from a paper mill.
On another note, I have not checked my test group in a couple of days now. Will be gone from very early till very late tomorrow, so will check day after and post an update.

 

[wdbtchr]

So far the additive package, or detergents, etc. has not posed a problem; however, some injectors that get coked from burning WMO come out yellow, not black. I believe this yellow color is sulfur, and sulfur might be the main ingredient in the so called "additive package" in motor oil.


The lubricity issue of solvent based-waste oil diesel fuel blends has been discussed many times on many forums. The resolution of the issue go to recognizing that lubricity in oils is a function of viscosity. Since an 80-20 blend of waste oil to gasoline is at least twice as viscous as diesel fuel, then it should therefore be twice as lubricious as diesel fuel.

I'm not questioning the lubricity of umo as fuel, just saying the detergents fight the fine particles separating. In fact where I used to work we made fire resis tant hydraulic fluid and one of the components was indeed micronized sulfur as a lubricant. It's also the reason that ultra low sulfur was bad for older diesel injector plumps. I've seen many threads arguing both sides of the lubricity of umo both ways up and down. I believe there is a thread on SS arguing umo has low lubricity. Personally I don't have a horse in that race. I run high percentages of umo in both my 5 tons and so far had nary a problem. As far as emulsifiers I have no idea which of the many ingredients in the hydraulic fluid would act as detergents or how to cancel them. The only thing other than sulfur I recognized was the dye that would indicate service life, turning clear when expired. Guess I should have paid more attention when I was blending this stuff, who knew?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

You might be onto something here, because I got so good at removing the carbon from my WMO that it was translucent; however, my injectors still coked, although it took months, instead of days, for them to coke shut. What I found when I pulled my injectors was not black coke on my injector tips, but a yellow crust, which I believe was the sulfur additive to motor oil. Nonetheless, direct injected turbocharged diesel engines do not seem to have an issue with coking injectors running WMO-gasoline blends.

 

[Jeepsinker]

Update: Was in the shop today and found my old test group I forgot about. The jars with Xylene and mineral spirits both showed very good results. Lots of carbon precipitates in the bottom of both jars. The jar with Naptha showed very little precipitation and seems to have been a complete failure.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

That is useful information, Jeepsinker. So, would you happen to know how long you left your samples sitting? Also, did you make a WMO-blend sample with gasoline? Because gasoline is the cheapest solvent around, most waste-oil diesel fuel blenders use gasoline to thin their waste oils with.

 

[Jeepsinker]

No I used off road diesel as the main solvent to cut the oil with first, then added the other solvents. I left them sit I disturbed from the time I posted that I made them until yesterday or day before. The days all blend together anymore.

 

[joshuak]

I found this today while looking for plans for a micro refinery:

"With waste oil, it needs to be heated to about 85c for a few hours with a solution of about 10-15% H2SO4 [ sulphuric acid 98% concentrate]
The sulphuric acid is used to neutralize the dispersant salts and detergents in the oil that keep the particulants in suspension.
The sulphuric acid is then neutralised with NaOH [ Caustic Soda ] then the whole lot is filtered through Bentonite clay with a high calcium content resulting in a clear oil.
BIG PROBLEM's though, The sludge from the waste called "green acid" must be discarded. You also end up with a far higher percentage of waste than the H2SO4 volume because modern multi grade oils are full of viscousity improvers [ polymers ] which get separated out with the green acid.
So children, Don't try this at home [ it is now the domain of 3rd world countries ]
The modern method is to "Vacuum distill" at lower temperatures." posted by kerrynzl.

The complete discussion can be found at this website:

http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/f22/plans-small-refinery-process-wmo-diesel-286608/index2.html

I can not attest to big oil doing this, but I do know that big grain uses that exact procedure to refine vegetable oil. Their sludge or spent clay is sent to a composting farm. Who would have thought?

A company that deals with oil spill clean up should be able to handle the sludge or green acid formed during this process.

 

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thanks, joshuak, that was useful. I have done vacuum distillation of WMO, and it worked quite well; however, the technology for doing so is over the head of most people. I will try the acid processing, then neutralizing with NaOH [ Caustic Soda ] then filtered through Bentonite clay. Sounds like a workable formula.