INCREASING OIL/WATER SEPARATOR BY ADDING A COALESCER

[roker]

Hello,

We want to increase the flow of sour water and oil to an existing separator (the oil is dispersed in the water).
Can we achieve it by adding a coalescer? can we predict what will be the capacity increase?

Regards,
roker

 

[orenda1168]

Consider contacting either GE Betz or Nalco for their recommendation for a selected oil-in-water demulsifier that may prove more consistently effective at oil-watwer separation.

Orenda

 

[mbeychok]

roker:

I would suggest that you contact some of the great many vendors who offer parallel plate separators and ask them if they could install a parallel plate pack in your separator. That would increase your capacity considerably.

Milton Beychok
(Visit me at www.air-dispersion.com)
.

 

[zdas04]

roker,
What are you trying to coalesce? The only thing that a coalescing filter can do is disturb the surface tension of a droplet (suspended in a different fluid, normally a gas) to allow collisions between droplets to coalesce into bigger drops that are no longer buoyant in the bulk media. I don't see how that could be applied to an oil/water separator. What am I missing?

David

 

[davsy]

zdas04
Liquid/ Liquid separation such as Oil/ Water is a pretty common duty for a coalescer. Lots of companies supply coalescer packing.

Roker
Here are just a few vendors it may be worth contacting or at least reading their information and downloads. You are probably best getting all your operating and fluid property info together and talking to the vendors and see what they suggest.

http://www.koch-ottoyork.com/products/liquidcoalescing.htm

http://www.amistco.com/PRODUCTS/COALESCERS/index.html

http://www.acsseparations.com/industries-served/waste-water-environmental/default.html

There quite a few other companies who supply this sort of equipments such as Pall and Knitmesh.

 

[gr2vessels]

roker,
I believe ( from your post) that the separator you use is operating on a timing basis allowed for the oil to coalesce and then to separate over some weir or other mechanical means (I could be wrong). Obviously, if you manage to coalesce the oil in an early stage and maintan the separation (%) without re-mixing oil in the flow (which I doubt you can manage in an increased flow), you might increase the flow by the percentage of time saved with quicker coalescing process. However, with increased flow (fluid velocity), the entrained oil droplets in the sour water might increase, thus making the upstream coalescer useless.
Also, if some coalescing plate device can be fitted to your horizontal separator, in the receiving chamber, the benefit will be faster coalescing, hence possibility of increasing the flow.
Tell us your configuration, there could be some hope..
cheers,
gr2vessels

 

[chief]

Depending on your flowrate, you will get highly efficient separation using centrifugal separators, Westphalia ,
Delaval are among the main manufacturers.

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