Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum

Oil Feedstock => Oil coarse filtering, settling, drying and storage => Topic started by: neisel on September 23, 2019, 12:05:16 PM

Title: Mixing with an agitator rather than pumping?
Post by: neisel on September 23, 2019, 12:05:16 PM

Just wondered if anyone has ever tried mixing rather than pumping to convert WVO to bio. I saw an American toploader washing machine with an agitator https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=top+loader+washing+machine+Agitator+action & thought, if it could be scaled up, made airtight & bio proof it would make short work of the mixing process.

Title: Re: Mixing with an agitator rather than pumping?
Post by: dgs on September 23, 2019, 06:29:05 PM

I think in the old days a paddle mixer was more the norm and then pumps came along. The thinking was that it is simpler but of course some tried to use things like c/h pumps which don't work too well.

Using a strong pump was what we were told until Julian came along with his Mixing v Processing idea which seems to work well throwing all theory into bollocks.

Title: Re: Mixing with an agitator rather than pumping?
Post by: Julian on September 23, 2019, 07:10:52 PM

I recon it would probably work.   As Dave says, recently I've been reducing the amount of mixing significantly.   I started by running the pump for a couple of minutes 4 or 5 times over the period of a couple of days for each stage.  It works fine and significantly reduces pump power consumption considerably.

Recently I got away with just one mix of about 5 mins for each stage.  The trick seems to be letting the mix sit for long periods.

I'm remembering "craigggy" and wondering if he got things right in the first place ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWAthSmJ6Nc