Completing the Waste Oil Generator

December 2003

Well, we have a lot more snow than in November. We're starting to see the annual Mecca of snowmobilers from down under (the Mackinac bridge).  The Christmas season is just around the corner, and we're not only dreaming of a white Christmas, we're seeing it! The more the wind howls & the snow falls, the better we like it.

Last month we covered steam boiler basics; this month we are going to pull it all together and show a complete system -- from burner to electrical storage.

Since utilizing waste oil requires pre-heating the combustor, this system is really designed for full-time operation. The real economy of this design is to run a 1 kW alternator, 24 hours per day, and to store the electrical energy in a bank of batteries.

To recover latent heat for co-generation (facility heating), the basic steam generator can be expanded into a full-blown cogenerator by simply wrapping copper tubing around the hot sections -- burner, steam generator housing, and exhaust -- and pumping heater system water through the copper tubing.

System Description

Since the closed loop steam plumbing was described last month, we will move on to the parts that complete the picture.

Figure 1 - waste oil generator system

On the left hand side of Figure 1 you will see the addition of the waste oil burner just ahead of the steam generator section. Also, to the left of the turbine you see the addition of a high speed alternator and battery bank.

The burner is basically a tube closed on one end, with a pyro-catalytic element (0.5 inch pipe) running down its center. Feeding the pyro-catalytic element is a mixture of air and fuel.

When starting the burner from a cold state, propane or natural gas is mixed with about 10 psi of continuous compressed air in a T fitting just ahead of the burner. Once the burner is good & hot, thinned and filtered waste oil is injected into the fuel/air mix line, while simultaneously shutting off the gas.

If the burner was sufficiently heated and a balanced fuel/air mix maintained, a clean, smokeless, odorless heat will power the unit indefinitely.

Also shown in the figure is a representative wrap of copper tubing around the burner. In a working system you would want to wrap the entire length -- from burner to exhaust -- for best heat recovery.

The last part of the system is shown in the lower left corner. A 10-inch Tesla turbine will rotate at about 18,000 rpm, so a high speed alternator is required for direct drive highest efficiencies. Slower speed alternators may be used with a belt drive to lower rpm's. A simple two-wire connection to the batteries is all that's needed to keep them charged.

That completes the design for our waste oil-to-electricity system. This is only meant as a practical jump-starter design for our club members. We expect PTBC members to participate by working on the details of the system and sharing their findings with everyone else. Keep in mind that it takes a lot of engineering time to perfect all of the details and fine points of the design.

The purpose of the Phoenix Turbine Builders Club is to foster voluntary cooperative action in solving some of the world's basic needs for food, utilities, etc. Together we can lick the problems, and lick the worldwide corporate greed in the process!

Our goals in life should be much higher than merely satisfying the infantile need for security through selfish activities. So what are we all waiting for? -- This next year we will have even better designs and projects posted on the club site as we move toward global free energy methods.

Stay tuned -- we have just begun to solve the energy crunch!

Ken Rieli