Waste Oil is a big problem due to this substance being labelled a hazardous waste in the USA and Canada. This page is devoted to exploring technology for re-using waste oil in productive and responsible ways instead of disposing of the oil.
A good waste oil burner is essential for making the most of this low cost fuel. Waste Oil itself presents some challenges not the least of which is that there are all kinds of waste oil that you might need to run through the burner. Different viscosities and flow rates not to mention all kinds of contaminants that you would not find in regular fuel oil.
Waste oil can consist of #1, #2 and #6 heating oils and diesel fuel (ultra low sulfur #2 diesel dyed red to show it is road tax exempt, heating oil is the same specification of fuel as on-road un-dyed diesel)
Some waste oils are not suitable for burning. Waste motor oil for example now has anti-flashing agents which raise its combustion temperature significantly. To burn this oil properly you need a burner thats designed with a preheater and atomizer. Not every burner may be suitable.
So filtration is important, debris in the fuel can clog a nozzle or a fuel pump or a preheater. Necessitating a burner teardown and hours of careful cleaning. A strainer to keep out the logs and frogs so to speak, and then finer filter elements to keep the nozzle clogging size elements out of the way
Pre-heating is important. Some waste oil, notable motor or crankcase oil now has additives in it whose purpose is to stop the oil from catching fire. Which is a big problem since you want to burn it. Burners with preheaters warm such oils up to a high enough temperature that they can burn easily. But heating oil can negate the cost benefit of using the oil in the first place.
The burner works by forcing the fuel under pressure through a nozzle so the fuel forms a spray pattern. The design of the nozzle determines the flow rate of the fuel. There is a spark ignitor close to the spray nozzle to provide ignition and a blast tube that provides combustuion air from a fan driven inside the burner. An electric motor drives The fan and and a fuel pump that supplies the spray nozzle
Waste Oil Heaters
Waste oil heaters or furnaces are an established technology that marries a waste oil burner to an air to air exchanger in a refractory lined box. Cold can then be blown through the heat exchanger and used to heat any structure. The big advantage being the fuel being used is far less expensive then conventional fuel oil and there are regulatory advantages
Waste oil power generation
A waste oil burner can be used to heat up water to drive a steam turbine which in turn can drive a generator. The advantages of this are obvious to anyone who depends on diesel generators in location where ther is no power. Another advantage is that many work locations have on site sources of waste oil that can be put to good use generating electricityWaste oil incineration
Incinerators
Waste oil burners can be used directly in an incinerator. They can also be used in concert with an existing burner to reduce the operating cost. Soot deposits caused by the waste oil burner are not a problem in the incinerator since we a re not depending on a heat exchanger to change heat into energy. UNless the burner is right next to it.
Oil burners also include combustion-proving devices to prevent out-of-control combustion - Primary Control; Safety Control; Cad Cell Control; Master Control; Fire-Eye Control are all common names for the 'combustion safety control'
Oil burners are extremely reliable and long lasting, home oil burners are still in operation from the 1950's. Maintenance involves replacing the nozzle, the air and fuel filters, cleaning soot around the area of the burner and optimizing the fuel air ratio with a combustion analyzer
Waste oil burners have to be primed if they run out of fuel or if the fuel supply is disconnected and reconnected. Priming removes any air from the fuel lines so the flow of fuel remains steady. Oil furnces typically last three times as long as gas furnaces, as much as 75 years
Fuel is injected into the combustion chamber by a spray nozzle.
The nozzles are usually supplied with high pressure oil. Because erosion from friction with the oil, and possible blockage due to lumps in it, they need replacement when worn. Fuel nozzles are usually rated in fuel volume flow per unit time e.g. USGal/h (U.S. Gallons per hour).
A fuel nozzle is characterized by three features:
Alternatively fuel may be passed over a tiny orifice fed with compressed air. This arrangement is referred to as Babington atomiser/nozzle, named after its inventor Robert Babington.[5] As the oil flows over the nozzle, the fuel needn't be under any great pressure. If the pump can handle such the oil may even contain lumps such as scraps of food. Because it is only compressed air that passes through the orifice hole, such nozzles do not suffer much from erosion.
Gear pumps This pumps the oil in and increases the pressure in the nozzles to 15 bar maximum (217.5 psi). Usually a gerotor of the sickle type is used. Gear pumps are used frequently in oil burners because of their simplicity, stability and low price.
Some oil burners use glow bars which operate much like the glow plugs of a diesel engine. Many use high voltage generated by a voltage-step up transformer to create a spark for ignition, somewhat similar to a spark plug.
Original oil burner transformers were copper wire conductors wrapped around an iron core. A standard type of transformer to this day. In the mid-90s electronic igniters replaced the copper and iron transformer, solving many problems related to the old style transformer. This new technology in igniters would soon replace all old style transformers throughout the oil burner industry. The new igniters would run cooler so the output voltage could be increased from 10,000 to 20,000 VAC.
This increase of voltage would be more reliable, reduce delayed ignition, run cooler and all while using less energy. The voltage is high, but a standard igniter will only pull around 35 milliamps.
Oil-fired burners are fitted with a safety mechanism for determining if the fuel has ignited and a flame present. The terms "primary control", "safety control", "cad cell control", "master control", and "fire-eye control" are variously used to describe a light dependent electrical resistor (LDR) which detects the flame whose value changes by the amount of light it is exposed to. The resistance decreases as the LDR is exposed to more light. The material is usually cadmium sulfide, hence the name "cad cell" for this component. In darkness the resistance is around 1 MΩ, while when exposed to light from a properly ignited flame the resistance is significantly lower, around 75–300 Ω.
Older oil burners were equipped with a primary control installed on the exhaust stack with a bimetallic heat sensing element protruding into the stack, such a control was referred to as a "stack relay" or a "stack control". It performed the same function as the newer cad-cell control but instead of sensing light from the burner flame it sensed heat from the flame exhaust gases to prove that ignition took place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83xhBa-CjtI
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