Oil burners

[Junkie]

Does anybody know how I can make waste vegetable oil burn cleanly in a small scale ?
I'm looking for something the equivalent of 3 tea light candles, but powered by waste vege oil.
I made a wick burner and ran my Stirling generator off it, it works, but the whole thing is
covered in soot now, very messy. Where can I get wicks suitable for WVO in the UK ?
Anybody know how to get a clean burn ?

I've built a few crude burners for metal casting that worked nicely, but now I need something
much smaller!

[PKM]

I'd imagine the problems with burning WVO come down to a combination of water/impurities and poor vaporisation resulting in incomplete combustion.

For impurities there's not much you can do besides filtering and settling to remove as much water and other grot as you can.

For incomplete combustion, you need a hot flame which you might not get with a candle-sized wick. Perhaps pre-heating the oil would make it less viscous and help it vaporise better? I'm thinking of something like one of those camping stoves (that are all over Instructables) that preheats the oil from its own flame.

To test this theory out, why not make a simple burner from a tea light container filled with WVO and a wick, float it in boiling water and test how cleanly that burns by holding an empty can in the flame?

[Junkie]

Thanks, I will try your suggestions and report back!

I forgot about the water in them, that's probably the main problem. Would a metal shield around the flame and in the oil help, as it would transfer the warmth back to the oil and preheat it. Not touching the flame, just around 0.5cm away from it.