First what are these two types of filtering systems?
WVO (waste vegetable oil) centrifuge:
A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor that puts WVO in rotation around a fixed axis, applying a force perpendicular to the axis. The oil entrifuge works using the sedimentation principle, where the centripetal acceleration is used to evenly distribute substances (WVO) of greater and lesser density. Traditional centrifuges use an electric motor to spin a “bowl” at high RPM and create a force like gravity but up to 3000 times the force of gravity. This speeds up partical and water separation enormously. Separation levels that might take months using only gravity will take less than a minute in a centrifuge. And most industrial centrifuges are continuous so dirty WVO can be fed in and clean WVO fuel exits. accumulatMost centrifuges must be stopped to remove the contaminants but some systems are available that allow automated cleaning without stopping the centrifuge.
WVO (waste vegetable oil) Filter:
A gravity or pressure filtration system, the WVO is simply poured into a filter bag placed over a container into which the WVO is collected. These filter bags come in different microns or levels of filtering ability to fit your needs.
Which is better well it all comes down to how much WVO you want to process, how much time you have to spend processing, how much money do you want to spend, and how hard do you want to work.
With WVO Filter system Oil will run through a 100 micron filter bag at 2-5 gallons per minute however, if the oil is dirty or just creamy the flow rate will deteriorate rapidly.Pre heating the oil helps as does larger and longer filter bags.Only use filter bags after settling. Which means time waiting for the oil to settle. Cartridge WVO filters tee strainers ECT should be used only with heated oil or heating of the filter.Waxy particles in cool oil quickly clog cartridge filters and no amount of pressure will resolve this issue. y mechanical cartridge filter will require an amount of pressure to work finding an appropriate pump plumbing and pressure relief system can be difficult and large spills are possible.
With WVO Centrifuge “Forced Settling” can clean WVO to sub micron levels as well as removing heavier liquid contaminants such as water. If you are looking at having to deal with hundreds of gallons or more, a centrifuge is your only solution. A WVO centrifuge is required to remove solid and liquid contaminants from the WVO regardless of size. Centrifuges have proven to be quite efficient in the cleaning of waste vegetable oil and reducing the free fatty acids in the pre-processing of Biodiesel. They also have proven to remove glycerin after the processing. Contaminant particles as small as 1/10th of 1 micron are removed, all without the use of a disposable costly filter element. There is no better way to make quality biodiesel quickly. What takes many hours for gravity to separate down a centrifuge can separate instantly in seconds.
