Thread: How do you clean sump oil?

Originally Posted by glenn k

It is also not all true. There is no such thing as a Halogen metal halogen elements are non-metal elements with one electron in their outer shell. They are F, Cl, Br, I and the next one has never been found to exist as far as I know.
Also CaO is in cement and here is an exert from this site
eLCOSH : Cement Hazards and Controls Health Risks and Precautions in Using Portland Cement
"Cement can cause ill health by skin contact, eye contact, or inhalation. Risk of injury depends on duration and level of exposure and individual sensitivity.

Hazardous materials in wet concrete and mortar include:

alkaline compounds such as lime (calcium oxide) that are corrosive to human tissue"
So putting it in your mouth may not be a such a good idea and depending where it comes from it may also contain Chromium, which is worse than burnt skin.
I too can't see how this is relevent to cleaning oil, neither is me writing this dribble.

Is new engine oil any better for your health than used???

Ohhhhhh the limits of my ignorance have been superseded.


Some brands of toothpaste have powdered chalk as the main abrasive (polishing compound).... calcium carbonate. Now of course they seem to have more chemicals than Methusula.

The trip with the calcium carbonate (lime stone / marble?) when heated to "well plenty hot" drives off the CO2, creating calcium oxide - which is a very aggressive alkali., when mixed in water, it becomes slaked lime or calcium hydroxide - which is still a fairly strong alkali.

But people use sodium bicarbonate by it's self to brush their teeth - and it's also mixed in some tooth paste, I think the sodium left over from the reaction tastes like #### and the alkali it's self tends to dissolve the gums a bit too much when used neat.

Having been informed by a chick who mixed up her own slaked lime - from neat "burnt lime" or calcium oxide, that the fine misting of dust landing on her "hot and sweaty skin" (swoon) caused her to become covered in blisters from the chemical burns...

I thought well... "Calcium oxide is just wayyyyyyyy to caustic - but....."

So the desire to substitute calcium hydroxide for sodium bicarbonate - resulted in an experiment. Through the use of a very small amount of slaked lime or calcium hydroxide as a tooth paste, I found that it does indeed clean teeth very well.......

But it's far too aggressive to use as a tooth paste in anything other than very small amounts, like 5 or 10% unbuffered in an average squirt of "normal toothpaste" and that it does cause "pretty decent" alkali burns inside your mouth.....

If you were to put a teaspoonful in your gob and scrub away - you'd be in significant trouble, and it's not the kind of gear that is to be swallowed.

But a very small amount on a tooth brush - along with running running water etc., enabled me to find that out.... and it took all of about 40 - 60 seconds for the overly powerful nature of the burning to become apparent.

The idea was never to "scrape by" on the DIY tooth paste issue, but now that I have cracked the secret, I can go and buy a 20Kg bag of powdered chalk (calcium carbonate) - extract a kilo or so of that and then mix in 5% slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) and clean my teeth with gusto - on the cheap forever more. No more $4 or $5 for 120 grams of the premium pastes...

That should actually work very well - provided I keep the CO2 out of the mix.

Anyway - I thought the sodium was a halogen, as listed in the "halogens" of the periodic table... and as frequently happens - I do make mistakes.

"CaO is in cement" - yeah but ummmm I was talking about slaked lime, cement was never mentioned.

I have found that the difference between "expert" and "non expert" tends to really rely upon ones ability to push and make one's self learn - generally through practice and use of the said nonclementure until the concept links to the output in a fairly seamless way.

Since Glenn - your obviously far more experienced and knowledgeable about jizzmatronics, voltrons and megatrons than eye - how about you start telling us all about how the universe works - starting with the average constitution of the base stock motor oil - molecularly speaking - and then add the issue of the additives and their functions - and then progress onto the generalised range of contaminants and by products of the oil circulating through a "mean" type of infernal combustion engine (petrol and diesel) and give us all the benefit of your wisdom in the techniques of refinement from "Le Poope Olio" - back to the crystal clear base stock oil.

Illustrate for us, the complete atomic and molecular construction of the said "Oil Molecule" for the engine oil, with the electron bindings, the forces of attraction in the atoms and within the molecule... in graphical and mathematical and some kind of programmable language like C++ (yet to learn)...

And show us how to calculate out how the polar forces of the molecule make it stick to metal and not teflon.

Show us how heat affects the molecule - why oil goes thick when cold and thin when hot.

Show us the decomposition temperature and process - and the reactivity; from liquid to varnish; along with the thermal decomposition of the molecule - how does it break up under heat.....


Show us how the additives work.


Glenn K - I await your instruction.

Originally Posted by Exador

It doesn't contain any of the acids, PAHs, etc, nor does it contain any of the micro-scale soot particles which are the cause of so much respiratory illness (the so-called p10s).

In the single-use application it should be much less unhealthy than the used item, given that you could readily drink the fresh stuff without getting much more than a bad case of diahorrhea.

As a lifelong nail-biter, I've probably swallowed a litre or more over the years, I'd reckon.

BTW, I think it's a bit tough picking on hamma head's mis usage. Alkali metals or halogens doesn't alter the case he was making, which was not the use of unslaked quicklime, but was to use the slaked form, calcium hydroxide, which then morphed to calcium carbonate mixed with a little of the slaked lime. Personally, i can't see a lot wrong with that, although I'd be tempted to add a touch of oxalic acid as a pH buffer.

Given the cost of toothpaste, though, i reckon I'm better off with just buying a tube every couple pf months.

If you're going to be a smartarse and pick someone up on an error in such a surly way, especially if you're going to claim to speak from authority ("I used to be a chemist"), it pays to check what you're claiming yourself, don't you think?As a chemist you should be able to work out the questions about the oil for yourself.

Personally, I found Hamma head's digression interesting and worth following.

I'm sorry hammahed if you or anyone else found my comments offensive, I wasn't trying to be a smartarse I just thought CaO or CaOH was not a good thing (for those that don't know the dangers) to put in your mouth. I have found this thread very educational. Exador were you trying to get a responce from me with the oxalic acid buffer comment? Especially mixing it with calcium.

Hazards Identification Ethanedioic acid (Oxalic acid)
Emergency Overview
--------------------------
POISON! DANGER! MAY BE FATAL IF SWALLOWED. CORROSIVE. CAUSES SEVERE IRRITATION AND BURNS TO SKIN, EYES, AND RESPIRATORY TRACT. HARMFUL IF INHALED OR ABSORBED THROUGH SKIN. MAY CAUSE KIDNEY DAMAGE.

SAF-T-DATA(tm) Ratings (Provided here for your convenience)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Health Rating: 4 - Extreme (Poison)
Flammability Rating: 1 - Slight
Reactivity Rating: 1 - Slight
Contact Rating: 3 - Severe (Corrosive)
Lab Protective Equip: GOGGLES & SHIELD; LAB COAT & APRON; VENT HOOD; PROPER GLOVES
Storage Color Code: White (Corrosive)
Oxalic acid is corrosive to tissue. When ingested, oxalic acid removes calcium from the blood. Kidney damage can be expected as the calcium is removed from the blood in the form of calcium oxalate. The calcium oxalate then obstructs the kidney tubules.

As for cleaning oil I think maildasmate had the best suggestion so far with using a centrifuge. From this comment I found that you can buy centrifuges to fit to engines that are driven by the oil pressure that take out nearly all particals. You can buy small centrifuges that clean about 2l/min of oil. The toilet paper filter still leaves the fine carbon particals as Bob and Exador have said they are very small(though it would remove most of the acids and metals as they are in the water component that is taken out (figures in link posted earlier))
So now if sump oil was centriguged then run though a toilet paper filter it would be good enough to use as fuel or engine oil though some additives may be lost. But should it be used as chain oil is now the question. Or should new engine oil or any mineral oil be used as chain oil?
"Used oil contains PAHs" I would think that new oil does aswell middle eastern crude is full of ringed molecules (unlike local oil which is mainly straight chained) and I would think the the oil we get comes mainly from middle eastern crude as it is heavier than bass straight crude.
"Micro soot particals" besides health problems they dirty your clothes but the centrifuge should remove these.
With the tests on mice with sump oil causing cancer were they repeated with new engine oil to see if this did the same thing? Not likley oil companies would not like that.
The vegitable oil sites mention health troubles with mineral oils in general but last time I looked these biodegradable oils were very expensive.
So perhaps as hammahed suggested it would be better to make rape seed oil a bit thicker by some cheap method and use that instead. This would be better for the operator and the enviroments health. Any suggestions on how to do this?

I'm sorry hammahed I was writing this when you posted have I covered most of the things you asked? I'm sorry I know little about oil additives, except some gather the soot into larger clumps so they can be filtered out easier others are to make the oil stick to metal. I have never worked in this field and it is rather specialised, I worked in a precious metal refinery and as a school teacher. I did learn a computer langage once written by a US Navy chemist that worked on UPAC naming of organic molecules it maybe used now I have no idea. It would make it very easy to store and find information on reactions.

glennk, oxalate is used as a buffer in horticultural feed solutions. Whether as the acid or as the sodium salt, it doesn't matter much, except that the acid has a ph lowering effect in itself and dissociates faster. Your MSDS was in relation to the pure compound, whereas in dilute form it is quite harml;ess, expecially if it is buffering calcium carbonate, which is its purpose in horticulture, especially since ammonium nitrate has been largely replaced with calcium nitrate and most plants exude carbonate in the form of carbonic acid through their roots. The carbonic acid/oxalate/calcium mix is very stable.

Just FYI, wikipaedia gives mean lethal dose range for oxalate of around 10-15g. The amount required for buffering the toothpaste would be perhaps that much per 10kilograms of mix. I haven't done the calcs, but I suspect it would be pretty close. How many years of toothbrushing would you get out of 10kg of paste, do you reckon?

having said all that, i still reckon the game wouldn't be worth the candle.

Back to the oil, the parts washer people have a pretty sophisticated treatment plant, including centrifuge, washers, filters, a whole series of things and I understand they're even considering steam distillation in order to get a product that will meet EPA requirments for vehicle fuel. Furnaces have different requirements and can handle dirtier fuel.

PAHs are certainly present in fresh oil, but their combustion products aren't. Partial oxidation can leave all sorts of nasty products, many of which are not easily removed other than by chemical scrubbing of one sort or another.

It all seems like far too much trouble to me.

Yes Craig I think the sump oil thing is too much trouble I think the canola oil is a better idea just need to make it sticky cheaply if you can't use heaps like Bob.
PS Were you at Burnley in !986?

Originally Posted by glenn k

Were you at Burnley in !986?

No, I've not studied horticulture at all, formally. I've been lucky enough to be involved with a couple of interesting projects over the years and my curiosity has supplied the rest. My chemistry is from a bachelor degree in applied chem back in '83, which was never actually used as such after I graduated, although it helped a lot with understanding some aspects of soil mechanics in my later career in geotechnics.

Did you teach there?

Yes part time Arboriculture prac instrutor 87-88 my chemistry is from 76

Originally Posted by BobL

Cheers MM and Carl.

I know nothing to do with cleaning oil , but I have to ask , is that saw cutting by itself? I see sawdust and was the beer nice , looks like a good day out . Cheers MM

That is a classic pic, getting your saw to go on "auto" as Bob puts it and then sit back and watch it.... I reckon thats a bit smart
Pete

Hey Pete, haven't you done that with your Lucas? I do it all the time so I can tail myself and still get the next vertical cut done with gravity and I get back to it just before it exits the log and then do the horizontal myself. Set the saw up for the next vertical and then I'm tailin the last board off

Have to admit though, Bob's 'auto' way is much nicer, specially the cold bit in the hand

I don't have a Lucas Al otherwise I'd prolly be saying things like ....mmmm oh I don't know...what would I say.....got any suggestions Al but that's off the subject... I inadvertantly did an oil cleaning experiment many years ago... probly when I was 16/17 (ahhh to be that age again and know what I know now)...drained some oil out of my bike or car? into an icecream container, didn't know what to do with it, so I sat it up on a beam under the house and there it stayed for years, forgotten about until one day I got it down and there it was clear as light coloured honey with a layer of black stuff on the btm, gravity and time had separated out the heavy stuff...I don't know s##t about PAHs and chemistry and what was still in it...but it was clean to look at...maybe if Glenn starts storing it for 10? yrs it might be clean enuff to use nah I wouldn't bother, environment and all that, thing is tho if we take it to the tip ("to be recycled") and then if it gets burnt in a boiler or some such other recycling device it is still in the environment (allbeit in a different form (heat energy/soot/gases)whatever!) so we get warmed by it a bit then we get to breathe in a bit of soot and maybe a few gases of some sort or other, of cousre this all depends on how close we r to the recycling device and how much of a dose of it we get, the vague point I'm trying to make is that it is still in the environment....unless it gets taken out into space and becomes space junk.... for my money I'll just stick with me $3.30/liter bar oil and leave it at that.

Pete

Originally Posted by pjt

point I'm trying to make is that it is still in the environment....unless it gets taken out into space and becomes space junk.... for my money I'll just stick with me $3.30/liter bar oil and leave it at that.

Pete

Gday Pete, the reason boilers and furnaces can use it is that they operate at higher temperatires and with much more available oxygen than an engine, and they're required to have filtration gear, including electrostatic precipitators, to remove the particles that are left. That means that the output should be as close as possible to pure CO2, which is relatively easily removed. They can be "tuned" to ensure complete combustion, which an engine can never be, unless it is run so lean as to be useless.
From the supplier's POV, they're also good because the furnace operator has responsibility for ensuring EPA is happy, not the fuel supplier.

As you said, bar oil is relatively cheap.

On the "auto milling" business, I reckon Al and Bob are just getting old...

Originally Posted by Exador

On the "auto milling" business, I reckon Al and Bob are just getting old...

I reckon Craig doesn't have to tail for himself - probably hasn't for awhile...

If I'm getting old, I'm still staying fit in body and mind, being the sawyer and the tailer

And Bob... when do you reckon he gets chance to come up with these ideas we all like seeing him paint with Volcano Orange?

Originally Posted by Exador

On the "auto milling" business, I reckon Al and Bob are just getting old...

Well definitely "old fart" at the very least!

Originally Posted by BobL

Well definitely "old fart" at the very least!

So how does the auto pilot work Bob? Cheers MM