Progress on Furnace conversion to WVO

[wildbill hickup]

Well this is an update on an update that I tried to post last week. It never seemed to make it(tried the disapperaring diary thing, no luck) who knows I might have pushed the wrong button, anyway:

Last posting I reported a decent margin of success with mixing WVO and regular home heating fuel 50/50 and burning it in my oil fired forced hot air furnace. I started with the following:

Beckett AF burner with a 1.00 GPH Hago 80º hollow nozzle, technition set (at time of installation) at 90PSI.

I made no modifications to the burner itself. The only changes I made can all be easily reversed and retuned to origional (just in case). This was kept a pressure type system and is as follows

After much trial and error (research and development if you want to get fancy) I settled on replacing the 1.00 nozzle with a .75 Hago 80º hollow and I'm running that at 130PSI. In addition to that I installed a Carlin line heater in the fuel line going to the nozzle. This runs at a constant 140º and warms the fuel slightly for better start-ups. I also readjusted the air intake just to the point where the smoke disappears in the combustion chamber. That is about it for the burner.

As for the WVO mix WVO from resterant (warm to hot) poured through ordinary window screen( to take out the chunks) this is allowed to sit for a day at room temp to settle the is reheated to somewhere around 200ºF and drained throught a standard home furnace filter into a second container. There it is mixed with #2 heating fuel and kept at around 100ºF. The mix is run thought a second fuel filter (10 micron) and then a 5 micron water filter into the feed line of the furnace.

Result is a reasonably reliable start-up and a nice clean burn. I have had to clean nozzle several times in the coarse of burning about 60 gallons of the mix. I still would not trust system if I went away as sometimes start-up will fail, but it is getting better and better all the time.

Next step is to try and increase mixture to 60/40 or even 75/25 however I beleave I will need more heat on the nozzle line and more pressure from the pump. The Suntac pump is capable of 200PSI so that is not a problem I will probably use a band heater directly on the nozzle adapter for the extra heat. In addition to that I am working on a siphon type burner conversion that will burn 100% WVO.

Well that's it for now, I'll keep you posted. Any ideas for improvment are as always, welcome.

Wildbill

[Bruce S]

WildBill;

 Question, when cleaning the nozzel?, are you seeing choking on the tip area?

Could be a problem of water not mixing and causing the detergent problem some here have seen on their injectors (dual tank conversions), when the water is in a suspended mix even after heating.

FWTW; Using old can't wear 'em any longer jeans make a real good first filter and cleanable too:-)

Keep up the posts

and thanks for sharing

Bruce S

[MattM]

Secure that supply of wvo (waste vegetable oil, right?) now because companies like National Byproduct and BP are gobbling up all the resources out there as quick as they can handle the volume in a processing plant.

It might be a good industry to pursue right now considering the relatively high potential for market penetration and low exchange of the current supply as a commodity.  Last I heard the early entries into the market are buying the supply up at around 10 cents per pound.  Consider that a majority of the restaurants out there still pay for its disposal.  It won't be too long before that practice comes to an abrupt end.

[wildbill hickup]

Hi Bruce,

Sorry it took so long to respond. I don't have any coke on the nozzle, I do however still get some varying amounts of black soot. I'm still adjusting things. I now have it set to reliably fire off thermostat, going on four days no misfires. I have some 'coke'(? solid black hard deposit) build-up on the back of the combustion chamber I think the fuel spray is actually hitting there. I belive the next step will be another reduction in nozzle size and an increase in pressure. Maybe better atomization will clear up both problems. At this point I'm just glad I can walk away from the thing for a period of time now (few hours) and not worry to much. I have still got some ideas on 100% conversion, but I'm still collecting parts for that, and I probably will wait til heat or the lack there of isn't so critical.

OH ya, the jeans, yep they work great don't they. Adding the 5 micron filter in the fuel line helped a great deal with clogged nozzles. Tried for a while to run with just a regular fuel oil filter with not-so-good results. The 5 micron is defanatly a must in a pressure style system(siphon type seem to be a little more forgiving). It has even been suggested to me that a 2 micron water separator type fuel filter will help in my 100% conversion. That is one of the parts I am getting for the later project. In addition conciderable heat is also required at the tip 180ºF or better I am told for good atomization of 100%WVO. Well all that in time, well saticefied for now.

[wildbill hickup]

Hi Mat,

Good point, I'm pretty secure in this source. We are pretty isolated up here in Northern Vermont. However I know the day will come when I probably will have to shell out some $$$$ for my used oil. I heve tossed around the idea with a friend about production (local scale) of BD that is "Made from WVO only" with all the bad press on 'use of food crops' is getting these days. Even just a purifing plant seems to have alot of interest with folks that want to save some steps in making their own BD.

Thanks again for the responce

Wildbill