Need Some Chemistry Assistance.

Maybe some sta-bil....?

http://www.amazon.com/STA-BIL-22214-Fuel-Stabilizer-oz/dp/B000B68V6I

...but why not let it settle and pump out the contaminate...?

...or build one of these....

That's pretty close to what I was thinking. He needs to get the glycol/water out of the fuel. I'd try putting a sample in a jar and heating it to see if the glycol/water/?? will settle out, decant it off, and see what's left. Of course, then he has to dispose of the junk properly.

Ethylene (and propylene) glycol should both burn perfectly well in something that can handle tractor tires!!

You probably have a high water/glycol content. What you are trying to achieve is a water in oil emulsion which then can be burned without damaging your firebox. This can easily be done with the right surfactants but the cost is probably prohibitive.

Two suggestions for practicality- first one, take a homogenous sample (with the circulator pump running), and split it in 2 parts in clear jars. Put one aside, and mix table salt (maybe 5%) in with the other, mix or shake it for 5 minutes. Shake both again and see which separates more and faster. If it works you can do this in totes and run the water off the bottom.

Also, if you know someone that works at a biodiesel facility see if you can get some crude raw glycerine ( but without wash water!!). This usually has a high concentration of free fatty acids and mono glycerides that will help emulsify water.

"Ethylene (and propylene) glycol should both burn perfectly well in something that can handle tractor tires!!

You probably have a high water/glycol content. What you are trying to achieve is a water in oil emulsion which then can be burned without damaging your firebox. This can easily be done with the right surfactants but the cost is probably prohibitive."

Well the problem is the system uses a normal fuel oil furnace burner that I modified to have a oil preheater right ahead of the nozzle that heats oil to around 230F before firing it out the front of the nozzle. By heating it up that hot it will spray and ignite just like normal fuel oil or diesel fuel.

The problem right now is with the amount of contaminant I have the arc wont ignite it on its own so what I get is a firebox full of oil spray before the control figures out that its not burning anything.

Granted when I get good oil going in it it will heat up the stuff sitting in the bottom of the firebox driving the contaminants out of the oil it takes off and burns well.

I'm not worried about damaging my fire box by any means this thing has no problems eating tires, railroad ties,plastics, garbage and anything else I can find.

Well thats the whole problem! It wont fully settle out and at the moment given our average temperatures I can't let the system sit dead for a few days to let the bad heavy oil settle out from the good stuff so I can pump it off the bottom.

What I have found out today is that at the moment I have so much ethanol in my oil that coming in contact with the 190 F surface of my boiler top will make the oil boil until the ethanol is driven out. Unfortunately to get the other stuff to bil off I have to heat it to around 300 F before it will boil out but afterwards that oil will burn just fine on its own.

Right now the only reasonable option for letting it settle out is to get another load of used oil and have the boiler draw off of that for a few days while the big tank settles more.

Here's something interesting: ethylene glycol is a desiccant for water, but it is soluble in organic compounds. So what happens to the water in a desiccant when the desiccant is itself dissolved in fuel oil? hmmm...

Yea as of today I can answer that.

So far reading up on the different way to separate them chemically seems the least likely or practical.

At this point the best solution so far appears to be to let my main tank settle for a few days then put the drainings in metal drums and heat it up until the two fluids will physically separate well enough to make the oil combustible again.

"Right now the only reasonable option for letting it settle out is to get another load of used oil and have the boiler draw off of that for a few days while the big tank settles more."

GA!

If you think that it will settle, then may I suggest the following.

Decant from your main tank into the totes or other containers as much as possible so that your mixer still works and the boiler still burns.

Allow those decanted drums to settle, while your main tank volume is constantly decreasing.

At some point in time, begin to "refine" the material in the totes by selectively drawing off that which is combustible and returning that to the boiler. Eventually you will reach a concentration where the mixer can be turned off.

You already know that it does settle to some account, since turning off the mixer snuffs the burner.

Also, I've seen fine mesh screens that were used to remove water from fuels. Would the antifreeze also be separated by such a filter/screen.

Another idea. If you believe that the contaminant is water based, then what happens when you add plaster of paris? This was an old trick to separate alcohol from water, maybe it will set and then be able to be removed.

Long shot but one method that we used to do for separating some emulsions into water and oil. The "witch craft" was to take some carpet shampooing machine defoamer and add a small quantity to the emulsion and the water/oil would separate with the oil on top. The water phase was then removed by separation.

Take a one pint sample in a quart clear bottle/beaker/flask and add 5 ml (1/6 of an ounce) of the defoamer to the emulsion. Shake or agitate vigorously to disperse the defoamer and let the mixture sit. Watch for the separation.

We also used this when our water treatment plant "foam over" from the waste stream. One ounce would handle well over 500 gallons or more of foamy liquids. The defoamer is available at any store that rents carpet shampooers.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Anti freeze compounds like ethylene glycols are readily miscible in water.

You can take out the contaminated oil, mix well with distilled / de mineralized water & see that the insoluble oil layer is separated out from water & glycol. The floating oil layer can be physically separated & tried for better combustion.

A simple beaker test can reveal you the scope.

At the moment given that the stuff settles out fairly fast I am planing to clean out the floor draft ducting and switch over to burning wood, and maybe a tire or five or six, for a day or two and let the tank settle good then pull the bottom 100 or so gallons of oil out and try doing a direct burn of what is remaining.

After that I am going to try some experiments to see exactly what it takes to get the stuff to separate and if I cant I will just pour it on the wood and whatever else I am burning when I run solid fuels a few quarts at a time.

I refuse to let that stuff leave the property without going up the boiler chimney first!

Hey! Here's a thought... What do you think adding like 10 gallons of gasoline to the tank would do?

Here's another idea... Siphon off some of your mix into one or two liter bottles, then put 'em up for sale here and charge the guys that want to experiment with your mix several dollars. I'll bet you could make enough to replace all the stuff in your main tank!

Already tried the gasoline addition. I typically have to do that when I have a lot of heavy diesel truck oil in the tank and we get a run of -20F and below night time temps.

The heavy 15w40 diesel oils turn into grease at that temp and wont flow through my five feet of 1/2" suction line and filters fast enough to feed the burner pump even at less than two GPH flow rates.

About 5% gasoline thins it out to a tolerable gear oil constituency that my pump can pull at that temperature of oil but ideally I have prefered using E85 being the high ethanol content also cleans up water and prevents ice particle build up in the filters as well.

So far today I have the burner feeding out of 5 gallon buckets of #2 dyed diesel while the tank sits for 24 hours so I can pump the bottom 50 - 100 gallons out tomorrow.

I also use a water based space heater powered by old engine oils etc. I have a 200 litre steel tank in the boiler room which I have raised by putting it on an old central heating radiator lying flat. I can start the furnace on clean kerosene, which then passes hot water through that radiator, which heats the old oil which helps it separate and flow. I then pass the old oil through a 15 litre steel water separating tank which has copper pipe wrapped round it to heat that oil still further and help any more contaminants drop out.

So long as the system is running hot, I can turn off the clean kerosene and run on just waste oil, and drain the water off each day.

Hope that helps. HM

What if the water could be completely removed and the coolant left in the oil? For that, you can use a box of Borax. Heat the Borax in a old pot and melt it and drive the water off first. Once cooled, crush it up and dump it into a holding tank and then add your contaminated oil. The borax, which is now just sodium tetra borate, will begin absorbing water until it becomes (again) sodium tetra borate dehydrate.

The ethylene glycol should remain suspended in the oil, especially if you have methanol or ethanol in there too.

The coolant is what I want out of the oil! Water is easy to deal with just by adding the ethanol and diesel fuel.

As far as samples it's easy to make your own. Next time you get your vehicles oil changed take a bit and add about 10% used engine coolant and 10% E85 gasoline to it the put it in your freezer over night and see if you can get the antifreeze part back out.

I know I can boil the stuff off but as most here seem to not see is I have about 500 gallons to deal with which is not practical to do one kettle or even a bucket full at a time.

Don't you suppose there is water in that oil, then? It will settle out and be the first fluid sent to the burner! Add a good slug of industrial ethanol (it's called methylated spirit in some parts) to the tank, stir it all up, and the problem will be gone.

Few steps ahead of you.

Already dumped 70 gallons of E85 in it just for the ethanol treatment plus 50 gallons of diesel fuel to get the water to stay suspended and burnable. No luck. What I have is likely a ethylene or propylene glycol contamination being when I do get the stuff to burn its leaving behind a pretty heavy white soot which just water contamination has never done.

As of todays frustrating efforts I have found that it will burn at a roughly 60/40 mix of diesel fuel and the bad oil. It burns okay at that ratio but it's sure pouring out a lot of white smoke meaning there is a substantial amount water and whatever else suspended in the mix.

Any ideas on how to get ethylene or propylene glycol to coagulate and drop out of a hydrocarbon suspension on the cheap while it's at sub freezing temperatures??

What about TSP? It might grab the water and whatever is dissolved with it and either suspend it or precipitate it.

As the oil/cr4p is already very cold you could put into the tank a stirring rod/tube/beater into which you could add dry ice. The water would freeze to the rod/tube/beater and could be removed. Just for clarity; the rod/tube/beater would need to be made from 1" to 2" tube/pipe so that dry ice could be put down inside it.
Hows that for left field?
Jim

It's still the middle of winter here in ND. Dry ice is only going to warm it up a bit.

I like this dry ice idea. That's a good one.

How about looking at the longterm, this could happen again and again....Plan for it! I bet it goes wrong in the middle of the night, midweek etc etc.....

Try finding a secondhand one of these, or even building one from a retired spin dryer......that way you will also filter out any solids, not just the water.....you can treat all your oil deliveries......

Not cheap, but the best method.....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/55-GPH-OIL-CENTRIFUGE-MOTOR-PACKAGE-for-WVO-OIL-and-BIODIESEL-/121213895567?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c38e9438f

http://www.ebay.com/itm/60-GPH-CENTRIFUGE-for-WVO-MOTOR-OIL-and-BIODIESEL-/161611021199?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25a0c47b8f

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultimate-Force-Centrifuge-120V-Waste-Oil-Biodiesel-Centrifuge-/121402471228?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c4426b33c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Filtermaxx-Lab-Centrifuge-Open-Bowl-Type-/171516114534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ef283666

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-FIltermaxx-Biodiesel-Oil-Centrifuge-for-WVO-WMO-/171453695088?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27eb6fc470

If you do something along those lines, do let us all know.....

Unfortunately thats more than I care to spend at this point.

What I am thinking about is setting up one of my 55 gallon steel barrels with one of my high powered heaters on it and just cook the stuff at 250 F until things either boil out or settle out.

So far as I found yesterday while experimenting the the magic ratio to make this stuff burn is about 60/40 good oil to bad so at that I have to process about 300 gallons which is doable with the equipment I have here.

We used to use a centrifuge to remove traces of water from equipment oil consoles. If he could pick up one cheap that would help. Regardless, his oil would need to be heated to reduce the viscosity and increase the density difference. Or, if he has extra time this summer and has a pump available, he could build one of these:

Good idea but by summer I will have collected enough good oil to thin this stuff out to where it wont be a problem any more.

I'm telling ya, you got these guys hooked. Make 'em pay for a liter or two to experiment with. They're nibbling - why aren't you setting the hook?!

LOL! I got 5 bucks! Send me a sample!

Stir it up first, please.

That looks to be an even cheaper possibility....

Could the problem be fixed by changing the atomiser or pump pressure?

Maybe the 'mixture' affects the particle size dispersion of the atomiser thus upset the ignition characteristics ?

Having only limited experience with oil burners, I consulted my 1946 edition of Audels oil burner guide. In the trouble shooting section it offers to cleaning the spray nozzle and changing the atomizer to achieve a different spray pattern, it suggests performing a dry spray run with the igniter off to view the spray pattern.

In my neck of the woods, we could never burn oil like you can up there, if I did every EPA, cop, fireman and anyone else with a badge and a ( gun) would be using me for target practice.

May I ask, how will you dispose of all of that white residue now coating the inside of your firebox ?

I don't have the same setup as a typical used oil burner does in the sense of having a atomizer nozzle. All I have is a oil preheater just ahead of a normal fuel oil injector nozzle.

I preheat the oil to around 220 F and at that temperature it will spray in a fine mist just like regular fuel oil or diesel fuel will and usually burns with a nice clean near clear exhaust.

Aa far as residues go burning used oil makes a very fine grey ash and with the 2000 or so gallons I burn a winter I get maybe a five gallon bucket of the stuff so I typically I either toss it in the driveway to melt snow or toss that in the wood ash barrels and haul it out with them.

This morning I switched the boiler doors over from the oil burner to the wood burner setup so I am going to run wood for a while and with that I found out that now having my own tractor forklift moving wood pallets and scrap lumber from the pile behind the shop up into the shop is way easier than the old method of cut and carry!

You'll forgive my chuckling at your self-inflicted hardships as I crank the AC down to 72F. It's a tad warm here today.

It was downright hot last weekend at the ball park.

Good luck. I've got my fingers crossed for you. Hope you have laid in a good supply of old tires.

Unlimited supply!

In fact I have six truck tires and four car tires in front of the shop now. I just need to cut them down to size to fit.

What is the best way to cut a steel banded tyre?

12 inch chopsaw with a carbide tipped demolition blade is my tool of choice.

After that same chopsaw with an abrasive cut off disk.

If you put a ratchet strap around the tire and pull it in so that its out of round a bit and cut it at the points perpendicular to the strap they will usually split right open as you cut.

At my southern college alma mater, they invite the northerners to come down for the pre-conference baseball games. Last week, they played one in the early afternoon with a high of 28degF. They cancelled the next game a couple of days later because of incoming snow. I think we've forgotten that basketball was invented to fill the gap between football and baseball.

I think if I was trapped that far north I would build an underground dwelling....

http://www.inspirationgreen.com/earth-sheltered-homes.html

Who's trapped?

There are a number of earth homes around here but they have a basic inherent flaw.

Our average ground temp is about 45 F which make them uncomfortably cool and damp year round unless you want to spend a lot of money on insulating and heating them.

My neighbors have one which is built in the typical design with only one South Facing wall with windows. It cool in the summer but always damp and cool in the winter despite having a heating bill that would be way higher than mine if I used the same heating methods.

Yeah, that"s why root cellars work so well there, even in summer.

Hell, my dad used to skate over the top of his parent's home when he lived in ND.

After having read all the comments in this thread, I learned some new "tricks" to try out sometime. I really liked Old Salt's idea of using carpet shampoo defoamer - cheap and easy to come by. That should really help "break" the emulsion of glycol-water and oil phase.

The part of this that bothers me is the white "soot" on your furnace walls. Depending on what is in the glycol-water, it could be any number of things, most of which are toxic. (1) Does it easily dissolve in water? (2) Is is alkaline in water? Expose it to some powderized Ex-Lax from pills - pink:alkaline (3) Do you think this could be the effects of excess steam in the burn that causes some degradation of the fire brick? (4) Can you simply brush this stuff off the furnace walls?

If it is alkaline and neutralizing with vinegar produces an insoluble residue, this could be aluminum oxide containing ash. If it is not particularly alkaline, it might just be salt residue from the water, and not a big deal.

"(1) Does it easily dissolve in water? (2) Is is alkaline in water? Expose it to some powderized Ex-Lax from pills - pink:alkaline (3) Do you think this could be the effects of excess steam in the burn that causes some degradation of the fire brick? (4) Can you simply brush this stuff off the furnace walls?"

1: Don't know. Burning wood now so what ever it is went out with that.

2: Don't know that either and isn't enough of a concern or curiosity to find out.

3: Don't have or use fire brick in my boiler. Everything is metal.

4: Powder easily brushes off. It's fine like chalk dust.

Pretty sure its the residue from burning anti freeze. I've seen it before from burning rags soaked with the stuff when cleaning up the shop garbage.

Pure ethylene glycol should not produce any ash or other powdery residue. It could however be from either mineral content of water used to dilute the antifreeze, or from a corrosion inhibitor that was in the antifreeze product. If so, that might be some form of molybdate salt. Who knows, who cares.

That's entirely possible. Never really thought about what else goes into typical antifreeze mixes.

Oh well at least wood burns without over complicating the process.

Good luck, here's hoping you lose none of your important appendages during this alternative fuel burning process.

I burned wood and most everything else for about 10 years before I switched over to oil as a primary fuel.

No big deal here except I am a bit out of shape for cutting up wood it would appear.

Long green hair probably gets in the way a bit too!! (Wasn't he an actor in Bonanza?)

You sir, are very punny! Yes Long Green (Loren Green) was Ben Cartwright.

Can you now imagine hearing Tcmtech playing the theme song to "Bonanza" while siphoning off oil over waste glycol-water? or while ripping up large trucks tires for burning?

I hope he installs a new air-sep plant to go with his furnace soon, then everything burns (probably including the furnace).

Its nice to have a laugh from time to time!!!

I laugh all the time. Really bothers my wife which seems to make it that much more enjoyable.

Amen brother, amen.