this is an unheard of to me settling technique, looks pretty phat!
here are the goods, read the entire post at the link for the nitty grizzity
big post i know, but this might be important.
The upflow processor consists of a vertical 55 gallon settling barrel with a short piece of 2" pipe in the bung hole connecting with the bung hole in an inverted 10 gallon barrel. The 10 gal barrel has the bottom cut out to form an input 'funnel'. A 2ft piece of 2" exhaust pipe with the top end flared, sits inside the 2" pipe coupling and ensures that the new oil is delivered near the bottom of the settling barrel. Steel pipe is rated by inside diameter and exhaust tube is rated by outside diameter, thus they fit well together.
Primary filtration is through bugscreen on a simple 2x2 wood frame that sits on the rim of the 10 gallon 'funnel'. A plastic bucket with holes around the bottom circumference has a plastic mesh bag [from citrus fruit] folded over the bucket rim and secured with a zip tie. Large size pantyhose is also secured around the bucket rim and supported by the mesh bag. The oil goes through the prefilters and fills the upper 10gal barrel, then down the tube into the bottom of the upflow barrel. The oil settles in the upflow barrel and every time I add oil into the upper barrel, clear oil is forced out of the 3/4" bung through a street elbow, a hose bib valve and through a clear vinyl tube into the inverted 5 gallon water jug/canvas bag filter assembly, and into the final filter barrel. The 30 gal poly barrels are more convenient for the 2nd stage, and I use two of them as collection/final filtering barrels.
For making biodiesel, the oil off the top of the first barrel is ready for processing.
Final filtration is by hand barrel pump drawing from 3/4 down into the final settling barrel , through a whole house filter assembly with a 5µ filter cartridge. The barrel pump is a rotating-vane, positive-displacement, self-priming type which can pull or push equally well. The 2nd barrel can be heated or the VO diluted with ULSD or kerosene, to make final filtering easier.
This VO cleaning system is based on the simple principle that water, wet oil, fats, and most other contaminants are heavier than clear dry oil. Suspended water and oil bonded with suspended water is heavier than clear dry oil, therefore it will not float to the top. Because the 'new' oil is placed at the bottom, any water, wet oil or food particles will NOT float to the top if the oil is not heated. If there are no convection currents to mix the oil then the clear dry oil comes to the top and the contaminants stay on the bottom. This cleaning process is called "Upflow Settling". This first stage gets VO so clean that very little builds up in the bag filter and the cartridge filter is good for hundreds of gallons.
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