Fry Guys
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The Fry Guys in the 21st century
Steve Spence, Melvin Martin & Luray Martin explain their process of providing a environmentally friendly, low cost, sustainable fuel for the 21st Century. They collect, filter, and use Used Fryer Oil in a variety of Diesel engines and equipment.
History
In the late 1800's, Rudolph Diesel invented the compression ignition engine that bears his name today. As there was no "Diesel" fuel at the time, he originally experimented with a variety of "fuels" including coal dust. Around 1900, he demonstrated his engine running on peanut oil in Paris at the exhibition. His stated goal was an engine that could be run by farmers, and fueled by crops. It's our goal to show folks how to get back to the roots of clean burning, sustainable, home produced fuel production, instead of the dirty, finite "solution" we have been fed, that ties us to outside interests that in many cases are volatile.
Collecting Used Fryer Oil
Our story starts with collecton. We travel to area restaurants collecting their used oil. The restaurants we deal with have to pay to have their used oil disposed of, so they are happy to give it to us. Some oil is waiting in the 4.3 gallon jugs they buy it in, the rest is in 55 gallon drums we provide them. Depending on the weather, we either pump it from the drums into drums on our trailer, scoop it out with 5 gallon buckets, or swap drums entirely, leaving an empty one behind. In winter, we usually scoop the heavy grease with a pail until the barrel is light enough to lift onto the trailer. Once it's on the trailer, we take it home, and pump or dump the oil into our wood fired boiler. The pump is currently a 2" jet pump connected to a gas engine, but we are looking for a electric version powered by our veggie powered Suburban. The wood boiler is a 300 gallon stainless tank on a steel firebox.
Growing your own Oil
If you have enough acreage, it's possible to grow and press your own oil for food. You can also have a leftover seedcake useable as animal feed. With Canola (based on rapeseed), we have observed 42 bushels per acre (organic). At 55 lbs / bushel, that's 2310 lbs of seed. With 42% available as oil, that's 970 lbs. of oil. At 8lbs / gallon, that's 121 gallons of oil / acre. You can find info on oil presses at Oil Press Info
Filtering Used Fryer Oil
Once the boiler is full of used oil, we build a fire under it with scrap and slabwood from the sawmill. This wood is free, and a recycled renewable source. It takes about 6 hours in winter, less in summer to bring the oil to about 250 F. This removes the water from the oil. We then let the oil sit overnight to cool to 130F for filtering. The junk settles to the bottom during this time. We pump the oil from the boiler with a suction strainer, working from the top layers, connected to a 2" jet pump into a 55 gallon drum with a 5 micron sock filter inserted. We can usually filter at about 40 gpm. The filtered oil is drained into 55 gallon drums on the trailer for delivery. We pump from these drums into fuel tanks in the suburbans, jetta, rabbit, and VeggieGen. Excess oil is pumped into old propane tanks for storage.
Using Used Fryer Oil
The trick to using used fryer oil in a diesel engine is to provide a second, heated tank onboard. We also install a heated filter. The engine is started on diesel, and when the cooling system warms up, and heats the veggie oil in the second tank, we switch from diesel to hot veggie. at the end of our run, we switch back to diesel to clean out the system. For our VeggieGen, we use a 55 gallon drum for a veggie tank. We took the rear heater from a school bus, and connected it to the cooling system, and dropped it into the barrel. The fuel pickup is attached to this heater.
We sometimes install manual switching valves for selecting which tank to draw from and return, other applications call for an electric valve.
The filter is designed around the Carquest #524840. This filter is designed for fuel dispensing at 60 gpm. We wrap a piece of sheet steel around it 1" larger in diameter, bend the fingers in and daub liberally with epoxy. Weld on the coolant fittings and circulate hot coolant around the filter. We sell this heated 10 micron filter for $250. A smaller unit for passenger cars is available for $150.
In cold climates we insulate the lines, filter, and tank with foam pipe insulation.
See the photo's in VeggieGen and Filter Build, as well as our 2006 GMC Sierra (Duramax) conversion.
Making Biodiesel
The other method of using fryer oil in a diesel is to make Biodiesel. Biodiesel is a chemical conversion of the oil, using lye and alcohol, to allow it's use in unmodified diesel's. We supply Biodiesel Processors and more info on making Biodiesel can be found at the Biodiesel Community website. Discussion groups include:
Heating your Home
Can you heat your home with veggie oil or biodiesel? Yes you can, but it takes some serious modifications to your furnace or boiler. The folks at the following groups talk, test, and develop ways to do just this:
Powering your Home
We live off-grid, so our main source of power is our veggie fueled Detroit Diesel. The Detroit 2-71 is ideal for running wvo due to it's positive displacement gear pump for fuel delivery, head encased fuel lines, and cam driven injector/pumps. This engine will start on 20F slushy oil. The engine is a 68hp, 2 cylinder 2 stroke. It has a 12.5 kw 3phase gen head installed, delivering all the power we need.
More pics can be found at http://www.green-trust.org/photoalbum/veggiegen/index.html
More Info
Good references include:
Girl Mark's Biodiesel Homebrew Guide
LILI's How to make Biodiesel
Joshua Tickell's From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank: The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as an Alternative Fuel
Lyle Estill's Biodiesel Power : The Passion, the People, and the Politics of the Next Renewable Fuel
Greg Pahl's Biodiesel: Growing A New Energy Economy
Larry Barr's ESSN Magazine
Ken Boak's Lister
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