Oil skimmers are pieces of equipment that remove oil floating on the surface of a fluid. In general, oil skimmers work because they are made of materials to which oil is more likely to stick than the fluid it is floating on. At the same time, the fluid has very little attraction to oil skimmers.
Oil skimmers are usually all that is necessary to remove oil from a liquid. In some cases, however, oil skimmers may be used to pre-treat a fluid. In this case, the oil skimmers remove as much of the oil as possible before more expensive and time-consuming measures are employed. Pre-treating the fluid with oil skimmers reduces the overall cost of cleaning the liquid.
There are two basic types of oil skimmers. One type is used to filter and remove oil, debris, and unwanted materials. The other type is used to recover or capture oil in a usable state. Typically, this second type of skimmer is used to clean up oil spills in factories, refineries, and bodies of water. Applications for oil skimmers include in-plant pumps, tanks, and coolant systems as well as outdoor cooling and settling ponds. When selecting oil skimmers, important specifications to consider include capacity, removal or recovery rate, and total flow. When capacity is measured in gallons, flow is measured in gallons per minute (gpm) and the removal or recovery rate is expressed in gallons per hour (gph).
There are several different types of oil skimmers, though all designs depend on the laws of gravity and on surface tension in order to function.
Types:
The six primary types of oil skimmers are belt, disk, drum or barrel style, mop, large tube or mini tube, and floating suction oil skimmers.
Belt oil skimmers utilize a belt of stainless steel. This belt is lowered into the liquid that needs to be cleaned. The belt then passes through special wiper blades, which remove the oil from both sides of the liquid as it passes through. Disc oil skimmers use a disk that is rotated through the liquid. The oil is wiped off the liquid and placed into a special collection container within the skimmer.
Disk oil skimmers are not a good choice for shallow liquids or for places where the liquid level fluctuates, because they are most effective when the entire disk is immersed.
Salient Features:
- Most inexpensive way to remove oil from water.
- Saves coolants by removing tramp oil.
- Conserves parts wash water by removing oily wastes.
- Prevents plugging of spray heads and filters.
- Reduces fluid disposal costs.
- Skimmed oil can be recycled and reused as a lubricant or fuel.
Coolants and Cutting Fluids:
When machine coolants become contaminated with tramp oils, four things usually occur
- Coolant life is reduced.
- Quality of machined parts is reduced.
- In many cases, smoke will begin to appear in the shop, causing irritation to workers on the job
- The fluid takes on a “rotten egg” odor.
Skimmers that remove tramp oils solve these problems and typically pay for themselves within a few months.
Oil Water Separator – Desorber:
Desorber uses gravitational phase separation principle to separate oil and water/liquid and does not use electric power or filters. The system consists of a heavy sludge separator and oil separation is done using CP interceptors and a coalescence separator. Both the separated oil and liquid can be utilized or disposed.
Features:
- No electricity required
- No filters needed
- No operating cost
- No maintenance cost
- Suitable for any liquid
- Robust, compact, and re-locatable
- Can be integrated with existing systems without modifications
Areas of Application:
- Petroleum refineries, lube blending plants
- Oil drilling services
- Mineral and vegetable oil plants
- Automobile units and service stations
- General engineering industries and machining centres
- Industries employing industrial washing machines
- Perfumery and essential oil industries
- Industrial houses
- Effluent treatment plants and sewage treatment plants
Clariflocculators
Product Description:
Clariflocculators are combination of both flocculation as well as clarification. With this, the installation of plant becomes economical and faster. All these clariflocculators are best suited for water treatment plant, waste treatment plant and effluent treatment plant. Available as centre driven and end driven models, these clariflocculators consists of concentric circular compartments.
Types available:
- Centre Driven Clariflocculator
- End Driven Clariflocculator
- Full Bridge Clariflocculator
- Half Bridge Clariflocculator
Working
- The water is fed into the clariflocculator
- Flocculating paddles increases the flocullation of feed solids
- In the process heavy particles settle to the bottom
- Remaining liquid flows upward in the clarifier zone
- Then the clarified liquid is discharged over a peripheral weir into the peripheral launder
- The sludge deposited is then routed to the sludge chambers and discharged
Technical specifications
- Diameter: 4M to maximum upto 70M
- Bridge width varies from 0.75M to 1.5M
- Number of flocculators: 1 to 4
Application areas:
- Municipal water treatment plants
- Primary Treatment in ETP
- Heavy Metal Removal