Recycle your oil

[Edward B.]

Re: Recycle your oil

The boss bought it in bulk in one of those waist-high steel boxes with a built in pump. We'd pump it into tall, reusable one quart glass bottles with threaded-on metal spouts that were common back then. We kept the bottles in a rack just outside the office and sold a lot of it.

I well remember those glass bottles with the screw-on spouts and the oil itself always seemed to have a strange bluish-green (or greenish-blue) tint to it a well.

[Duke W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

It would seem that with today’s technology the used motor oil could be refined and be a better starting point vs crude. All the different additives might be more of an issue than I think. But this is just an off the cuff thought.

I think it's a matter of how refineries are set up to create modern base stock lubricating oils from crude oil. It would require a lot of retooling to use used oil as a feedstock and remove all the oxidized components. So filtering it and mixing with heavy fuel oil is a cheaper way to dispose of it including putting the heat of combustion to a useful purpose.

Also, the public would likely not accept that their $4 a quart "premium engine oil" is made from used engine oil rather that "virgin crude oil" most of which is actually quite nastier than any used engine oil.

Duke

[Gene M.]

Re: Recycle your oil

So from Duke’s presentation it sounds like the used motor oil would have a bad rap just because it’s ”used” and nobody would want to put it in their crank case. But as a fuel oil mix it would be accepted. I think Duke’s reading the public is spot on. Funny how the public views things.

[Dick W.]

Re: Recycle your oil

I think it's a matter of how refineries are set up to create modern base stock lubricating oils from crude oil. It would require a lot of retooling to use used oil as a feedstock and remove all the oxidized components. So filtering it and mixing with heavy fuel oil is a cheaper way to dispose of it including putting the heat of combustion to a useful purpose.

Also, the public would likely not accept that their $4 a quart "premium engine oil" is made from used engine oil rather that "virgin crude oil" most of which is actually quite nastier than any used engine oil.

Duke

When I was working in a large fleet we had a filter/blender that we mixed a 10% used motor oil with 90% diesel fuel. We saw no adverse effects of doing this. With all the ultra low sulphur and who knows what else in fuel today this would not work for modern highway engines. But large engines like the Wartsila marine engines that operate in many areas that have no emission codes to deal with, just filter the rocks out of the oil and dump it in the tank. The older versions burn fuels as thick as liquid asphalt, it has to be heated to pump it in the engines.