Diesel fuel from waste oil? possible?

[Wolf1]

Was pondering something today. Would it be possible to convert used waste oil (motor oil, trans oil etc..) into diesel fuel?

Seems like if you can turn french fry oil into bio-diesel why not waste oil??

Anybody know if its possible? without buying a texaco refinery?

[Tim Walsh]

I'll bet it's possible, but on the other hand, waste motor oil has soo many contaminates in it that would it be worth filtering those out to use it as fuel oil?

[M.D. Holloway]

It is possable but there are more problems than it is worth.

[notfarnow]

I know of people burning waste oil in their diesels. I know the cars will run, but who knows what the long term effects would be.

I have heard of lots of folks who put their old oil in with a full tank of diesel after an oil change. Someone once told me this is commonplace in the trucking industry.

A better use of waste oil is heat. Lots of waste oil furnaces for shop & industrial applications.

[E Ray]

Yes, it is possible, this used to be a pretty standard practice with large truck fleets, crankcase oil was filtered and blended with diesel fuel, usually at a low percentage, around 5%+/-. Over on the Mercedes diesel boards some have claimed to be running up to 50% waste motor oil. A couple of things to keep in mind the if using crankcase oil, it must be from a diesel engine, gas engine oil has a whole different set of contaminants including gasoline, not good in a diesel. The oil must be filtered; 2 micron or better to remove the particulates and dosing it cetain improver wouldn’t hurt either. Blendin can be done with either diesel (#2) or kerosene, if using kerosene you have to use cetain improver. Then there is the issue of what type of engine you are going to be running this stuff in, a old technology diesel with mechanical injection you should be ok, good filtration is the key here. In the newer common rail injection system you could be headed for disaster, these systems tend to be much more sensitive to small particulates in the fuel.

Good luck

Eric

[notfarnow]

what he said. Common rail injection is an issue with waste vegetable oil in diesels too. The old cars seem to be fine, but some of the newer ones are dicey.

FWIW: Waste oil heat:
http://www.wasteoilheat.com/?ppcsource=adwords

[svandamme]

original diesel engine ran on coal dust.