I am coming close to finishing my waste vegetable oil centrifuge. For those of you not familiar here is a little background. Since the WVO will come from the the local restaurant containing various food particles and possibly some water you need a way to remove them to get to the pure vegetable oil. With a centrifuge as you pour the warmed oil into the centrifuge bowl spinning at 3400 RPM the contaminants will be slung to the outer walls and the pure clean oil will remain in the middle as you continue pouring the clean oil will be slung out of the top of the bowl into the exterior housing. this housing has (will have) a drain which will allow you to capture the clean oil. When you have finished you stop the centrifuge remove the bowl (one nut) and clean out the remaining sludge that is left behind.
Currently most people that use WVO use a series of filters that, through gravity, filter the WVO. I did not like the idea of this process as I did not want to continue buying filters and waiting for gravity to do it's thing. I think the centrifuge is a better solution removing more contaminants and there are no filters to replace.
WHAT I USED:
Since a centrifuge spins at high speed, balance is key so I used a laboratory test tube centrifuge (which I bought on EBay for $20) and had a local machine shop carve out the inside to create a bowl. For safety sake I wanted a durable housing the would contain the bowl and have enough room for the slinging of the oil, so I searched for an old school style pressure cooker, in which I cut a large hole in the top to be able to add the oil while still maintaining the slinging oil spray. Next was the motor after much research I found a spa pool pump motor gave me the highest RPM, it was fairly well sealed and its shaft was threaded on the end to lock the bowl in place.
Anyway I just wanted to give you guys a pictorial update of where I am in the process. The researching right parts is the most time consuming. All that I lack now is attaching a frame with 3 legs to the outside of the pressure cooker which will lift the motor and adding a valve to it's bottom to drain the fresh oil.
I will keep you guys posted
Mark