Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
Been thinking about the crude oil pumps around the area (our property has several), how hard is it to make your own fuel (vapour distillation) straight from crude oil? Most diesel engines will run on just about anything & kero was the first & easiest product made from crude oil back in the 1800's.
Has anyone been down this backyard "still" before?
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:25 am Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
Well, I knew a family in PA who's parents had their own oil well working on their property. It made a big mess of nastyness in the woods, but it was interesting. One thing I remember them mentioning was it was alright as a lubricant for protecting some tractor parts from rust. Also I'm sure you could burn crude directly to fuel a steam engine / generator setup. But I suspect refining your own crude is a pain...
However, on a tabletop you could probably heat the crude in a sealed vessel with a temperature sensor and maybe two pipes coming off it. One pipe to vent evaporated gases with a shut off valve and another pipe with a shut valve which you open up when it gets to the Kerosene temperature range... That pipe would then lead into a cooling pipe to condense the hot fuel or into a solvent safe bag to condense due to the high surface area of the bag.
Just thinking, it sounds like it could be done (at least in very small batches). But most likely, if you can't figure it out on your own you'll blow yourself up trying so don't. Burning crude in any steam engine to produce power will likely be safer then evaporating fuel from crude.
Kerosene is an oil distillate commonly used as a fuel or solvent. It is a thin, clear liquid consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons that boil between 302°F and 527°F (150°C and 275°C). While kerosene can be extracted from coal, oil shale, and wood, it is primarily derived from refined petroleum. Before electric lights became popular, kerosene was widely used in oil lamps and was one of the most important refinery products. Today kerosene is primarily used as a heating oil, as fuel in jet engines, and as a solvent for insecticide sprays.
Petroleum byproducts have been used since ancient times as adhesives and water proofing agents. Over 2,000 years ago, Arabian scientists explored ways to distill petroleum into individual components that could be used for specialized purposes.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5205/is_1999/ai_n19125074
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:31 am Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
steam_cannon wrote:
Just thinking, it sounds like it could be done (at least in very small batches). But most likely, if you can't figure it out on your own you'll blow yourself up trying so don't. Burning crude in any steam engine to produce power will likely be safer then evaporating fuel from crude.
So you're not condoning this behavior? right. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
pstarr wrote:
steam_cannon wrote:
Just thinking, it sounds like it could be done (at least in very small batches). But most likely, if you can't figure it out on your own you'll blow yourself up trying so don't. Burning crude in any steam engine to produce power will likely be safer then evaporating fuel from crude.
So you're not condoning this behavior? right.
No no, I am condoning it, but only if he posts the video on Youtube!
Seriously though, refining his own crude is not that far off from producing wood gas or refining methanol vapors from wood gas. It's doable, but it requires professional accuracy. Does he build robots? I do and I know cardboard and tin cans don't make a good robot. And I also know for this kind of project to work, an understanding of physics, engineering, chemistry, and mechanics are all prerequisites. So this is what I mean by if he can't figure it out on his own he'll blow himself up...
Also I suggested building a table top version because, if he were using test tubes with pop out safety stoppers it's going to be relatively safe. A table top setup outside might only produce a few cups a day, but if he saved it up he could still run some farm equipment come harvest time. So it's not that crazy or impossible, if he knows what he's doing. Otherwise yeah, he'll blow himself up! (Boom!)
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3655 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:34 am Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
ghosty_ghost wrote:
thanks for the welcome. As I know nothing about the subject (refining), we have to start with that first dumb question
Is this crude yours or does it just come from wells on/near your property? What is the water cut? How patient are you, if you rush something like this off half baked you could kill or injure someone including yourself.
'pot diesel' was made from the very beginning, as was kerosene and straight run gasoline. However the process is very inefficent using a straight run refinery as about half of the input crude will be heavy oil out the other end. If the crude is yours and you don't mind that you can use the heavy oil as fuel oil to power the crude refinery, but you sure do waste a lot of energy doing that! _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 12:54 am Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
The pumps are on our property, i swear it leaks more than what goes in the holding tank. I just wanted to kick around the idea of the feasibility of it all without launching myself into space. Take an old Lister engine for instance, could the crude be burned straight or does it require a basic refining process first or maybe just filtering would be enough?
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3655 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
ghosty_ghost wrote:
The pumps are on our property, i swear it leaks more than what goes in the holding tank. I just wanted to kick around the idea of the feasibility of it all without launching myself into space. Take an old Lister engine for instance, could the crude be burned straight or does it require a basic refining process first or maybe just filtering would be enough?
cheers
Well in WW II when the Japanese lost their refinery capacity due to bombing they started using straight filtered crude to fuel their navy ships. The problem was, the tanks filled with explosive vapors as they emptied, things like Butane and Propane and Pentane came out of solution as they pumped fuel out of the tanks and left them empty. Thereafter any spark or battle damage would result in a massive flash fire which often doomed the ship.
Now I assume you are not talking about a huge tank so that should not be as much of an issue. Also the USN submarine fleet during WW II used another method, they filled some of their ballast tanks with fuel oil and then removed the oil by pumping water in to force the oil out the draw pipe. A simple float valve that sinks in oil but floats in water prevents the water from entering the fuel system when the tank is empty of oil. No fumes form because the volume is always filled with liquid. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 257 Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject: Re: Make your own fuel from crude oil????
There used to be stationary internal combustion engines, hot bulb and hot tube engines. They were capable of running on some grades of unrefined crude.
I think there might still be some at work here and there, pumping crude out of old wells.
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