SE-20 WVO cleaning centrifuge, bracket & pipe work

A Centrifuge is an oil cleansing device, it is not intended to purify foul oil in one pass, but to remove the contaminants from oil that cannot be removed by the lowest rating of washable filter (this being 80 micron), and particles that are too small to be removed by any filter (smaller than 1 micron), by combining washable filters with a centrifuge you can eliminate the need for disposable filter elements.

A centrifuge is not designed to purify oil in a single pass, unless the oil is very clean. The speed at which the centrifuge separates contaminants from oil is determined by the cleanliness of the main body of oil and the RPM (not the RPM alone). The centrifuge rotor is driven by jets of oil propelled out from the rotor, creating a propulsion force away from the outer wall of the centrifuge, without the jets the rotor will not spin, so to spin at all it needs to pass oil at a rate of about 3 lpm... if your oil is heavily contaminated then a large proportion of the oil will go straight through the centrifuge to provide the propulsion, and only a small amount of contamination will be separated in the initial pass/es, if your centrifuge fails to remove anything after repeated passes then your oil may need to be filtered to a better standard beforehand.

Multiple passes (up to 3) may be required to gain the highest purity when sub-micron contamination is present. The centrifuge will require emptying of contaminants periodically, although regularity will depend upon how contaminated your oil is and the size of centrifuge being used, the better you strain your oil beforehand, the longer the centrifuge will operate before cleaning is required. Oil should be pre-filtered to a maximum particulate size of 250 microns prior to being pumped into the centrifuge.

A Centrifuge will remove heavier-than-oil particles, but it will find it more difficult to separate any particles if the main body of oil is heavily contaminated with material of the same specific gravity, in this case the oil will require more than one pass, or for the oil to be filtered to a better standard before pumping into the centrifuge, the cleaner the main body of oil is, or gets, the faster the rate of separation will be.

A Centrifuge will remove heavier-than-oil liquids by the same means as it removes particles, but it will not remove "miscible" liquids, for example liquids that have the same "Specific Gravity" as the oil, or contaminants that are bonded to the oil molecules chemically. It is worth noting particularly with liquids that the maximum capacity of the centrifuge rotor cap (where dirt is held) is approximately 295 Grams, if you pump a lot of water, glycerol, or animal fat through the centrifuge then it will become full very quickly and this will prevent further separation.

Centrifuges take a bit of getting used to, some people expect too-much-too-soon and get frustrated without investigating their problems properly. Most problems are experienced by those who use a centrifuge for purifying waste vegetable oil, and are mostly caused by excessive animal-fat in the oil (this is white in colour at room temperature) Animal Fat makes the oil cloudy and, being almost the same SG as the oil, makes it extremely difficult to separate. We recommend passing a small amount of oil through an ion-exchange or cellulose media to determine if any cloudiness is caused by animal fats.

Centrifuge Specification

The SE-20 Model is designed to opertate at a maximum pressure of 7 Bar / 98 PSI with a maximum through flow 3.46 lpm / 208 lph and at a maximum speed of 8000 RPM. The waste/contaminent storage capacity is 295 Grams.