Patent Application
20080028676
The subject matter which is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains the preferred embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
Turning now to the drawings in greater detail, it will be seen that in
Still referring to
Air bubbler pump 10 is connectable to tank 11 to produce mixing bubbles 10A via air bubbler pump line 10B. It will be appreciated that mixing bubbles 10A may be any suitable diameter for mixing the desired blended ration of petroleum to vegetable oil.
It will also be appreciated, referring to
Blended fuel is drawn through outlet port 11A through fuel filter 12. Fuel filter 12 may be any suitable fuel filter such as, for example, a fuel filter/water separator.
Circulator pump 13 operates to circulate fuel from tank 11, through fuel filter 12, t-valve 14, and back to tank 11 through inlet port 11B. Circulator pump 13 may be any suitable pump for pumping blended petroleum/vegetable oil. It will also be appreciated that circulator pump 13 may have any suitable duty cycle for operating intermittently or non-intermittently.
Fuel burner 15 is any suitable oil burner or system requiring diesel fuel for operation, such as, for exemplar purposes only, heating systems such as forced hot air oil burner or a forced hot water oil burner, or a compression-ignition type internal combustion engine such as a diesel engine.
In a preferred heating system embodiment fuel burner 15 will have a higher operating pressure and decreased fuel nozzles (not shown) than standard fuel burners operating with non-blended fuel. It will be appreciated that best performance is achieved by having the return in the oil circulator 13 loop back to the tank 11 at the top of the tank 11 and the blended fuel to the burner near the bottom of the burner 15.
Referring also to
Referring to
Referring now to
Storage tank 42 is, a vegetable oil storage tank and may be any appropriate storage tank designed and/or approved by an approving body for the holding of vegetable oil.
Petroleum oil from tank 41 and vegetable oil from tank 42 are flowed though flow pipes 41A and 42A, respectively to mixing fuel tank 11x. The flow through each of the flow pipes 41A and 42A is synchronized and controlled by ganged fuel flow controller 43. Fuel controller may be any suitable adjustable controller to set the amount of desired flow mixture into mixing tank 11x.
An example flow controller knob 4A1 is show in
Mixing tank 11x stores and mixes and stores the petroleum and vegetable oil as described earlier. However, the tank 11x may be suitably sized for mixing and storing the petroleum/vegetable oil blend based upon operational requirements, e.g., number of gallons used per day and any desired blended reserve.
Likewise, mixer air pump 10x may also be suitably sized for a smaller mixing tank 11x. It will be appreciated that mixing may be accomplished by any suitable means.
The diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention. For example, one variation may be to use components adapted to use transesterified vegetable oil.
While the preferred embodiment to the invention has been described, it will be understood that those skilled in the art, both now and in the future, may make various improvements and enhancements which fall within the scope of the claims which follow. These claims should be construed to maintain the proper protection for the invention first described.
