Well the 30gal reactor Rickh made for us wasnt near big enough (which we knew going into the project), so we're stepping up to a much larger setup. Ricks reactor/wash/dry tanks worked very well and it was nice to learn on a 30gal batch instead of a 300 like we are now designing/ building.
We pick up 275-325 gallons every 2 weeks from 3 different McDonalds with well over 3000 gallons in storage right now lol. They have indoor storage tanks so all we have to do is hook our hose on and pump away. Usually we just load a couple 250gal chem totes (yes washed out
), with an air compressor, 2" air diaphram pump and generator on to a car trailer, drive over and pick all the oil up. All 3 McD's are within 5-6 min of each other so it doesnt take long at all to get them pumped out. When we get the reactor done the 4th store in town will install a tank system which will put us over 400gal of veggie oil every 2 weeks
. Thier oil sucks though, it has alot of crap in it, titrates poorly and has water in it. Good thing is that it does make good fuel lol. For a dewatering tank i picked up on a nice used 175gal HW tank from rickh. The tank was used in a boiler setup so its just one big foam wrapped tank with lots of threaded bungs in it. Ive got 3- 3800w elements in it controlled by a nice digital temp controller and a boiler pump for circulation. When the steam starts slowing down i start pulling small samples to boil in a pan. Oh and cant forget the prefilter... I heat the oil up in the chem tanks with 1-1500w bucket heater that way this thick shyt goes through the filters lol. It runs through a 200 micron bag filter then a 100 micron bf under pressure. I figure this is good enough for dewatering. Still up in the air on how fine to get before puting it into the reactor, thinking 5-10 micron before the reactor.
Currently we've got a 500 gal cone bottom for the reactor, 110 gal cone bottom mixing tank for the methanol and KOH and last but not least an 80gal hw tank that will be used to heat the oil up so we can get a good reaction. Ive got a 3ph pump with an 1 1/2 inlet - 1 1/4 outlet that will be controlled by a VFD. The VFD can be programmed to certain speeds based on what input is triggered. Ours will be setup for a low speed for the heat cycle and a higher speed for the reaction and dry cycle. Right now the hw tank will be pumped out before the reaction and the only purpose it will serve is a heater. Instead of using a bunch of ball valves to control flow i have purchased some nice 120v brass diaphram valves which will be controlled by an Allen Bradley PLC. Basically we're trying to cut back on the amt of man hrs this thing has to be baby sat. Providing input to the plc is a touch screen panel view that will have options such as "heat", "react", "wash" and "dry". Once we get this working well i hope to get this down to a single step, but for now my (very) limited programming skills are stopping us from doing a single step production. Hopefully in the next couple days i can get some pictures up, I think you guys will really like what we are doing. Any ideas, comments or suggestions are appreciated.
We pick up 275-325 gallons every 2 weeks from 3 different McDonalds with well over 3000 gallons in storage right now lol. They have indoor storage tanks so all we have to do is hook our hose on and pump away. Usually we just load a couple 250gal chem totes (yes washed out
), with an air compressor, 2" air diaphram pump and generator on to a car trailer, drive over and pick all the oil up. All 3 McD's are within 5-6 min of each other so it doesnt take long at all to get them pumped out. When we get the reactor done the 4th store in town will install a tank system which will put us over 400gal of veggie oil every 2 weeks . Thier oil sucks though, it has alot of crap in it, titrates poorly and has water in it. Good thing is that it does make good fuel lol. For a dewatering tank i picked up on a nice used 175gal HW tank from rickh. The tank was used in a boiler setup so its just one big foam wrapped tank with lots of threaded bungs in it. Ive got 3- 3800w elements in it controlled by a nice digital temp controller and a boiler pump for circulation. When the steam starts slowing down i start pulling small samples to boil in a pan. Oh and cant forget the prefilter... I heat the oil up in the chem tanks with 1-1500w bucket heater that way this thick shyt goes through the filters lol. It runs through a 200 micron bag filter then a 100 micron bf under pressure. I figure this is good enough for dewatering. Still up in the air on how fine to get before puting it into the reactor, thinking 5-10 micron before the reactor.Currently we've got a 500 gal cone bottom for the reactor, 110 gal cone bottom mixing tank for the methanol and KOH and last but not least an 80gal hw tank that will be used to heat the oil up so we can get a good reaction. Ive got a 3ph pump with an 1 1/2 inlet - 1 1/4 outlet that will be controlled by a VFD. The VFD can be programmed to certain speeds based on what input is triggered. Ours will be setup for a low speed for the heat cycle and a higher speed for the reaction and dry cycle. Right now the hw tank will be pumped out before the reaction and the only purpose it will serve is a heater. Instead of using a bunch of ball valves to control flow i have purchased some nice 120v brass diaphram valves which will be controlled by an Allen Bradley PLC. Basically we're trying to cut back on the amt of man hrs this thing has to be baby sat. Providing input to the plc is a touch screen panel view that will have options such as "heat", "react", "wash" and "dry". Once we get this working well i hope to get this down to a single step, but for now my (very) limited programming skills are stopping us from doing a single step production. Hopefully in the next couple days i can get some pictures up, I think you guys will really like what we are doing. Any ideas, comments or suggestions are appreciated.
