Oil/Water Seperation

[bslgeoff]

Hello All

I have a task to try and seperate oil and water which has partly emulsified - will come out though. The flowrates are high so most conventional technologies are alittle limiting. Presently using a daf system and currently looking at a iaf system or centrifuge operation. Can do this I beleive but wonder wht else is available. Can't use a de-emulsifier as this will contiaminte the system. System operates for food grade and uses tallow and water mix.

 

[JKEngineer]

A liquid cyclone system might work. You would need to pump the material, which might make your emulsification worse. High flow rates should not be a problem though.

Jack M. Kleinfeld, P.E. Kleinfeld Technical Services, Inc.
Infrared Thermography, Finite Element Analysis, Process Engineering

http://www.KleinfeldTechnical.com

 

[WarrenChurchill]

Heavy oil and water can be separated using electrostatic coalescers. Try Kvaerner or Natco.

Combined heat and chemical emulsion breakers (heater treaters) may also be an option.

 

[TD2K]

I've seen centrifugals work in this application as you were thinking.

We were testing a small scale one in Indonesia (Alfa Laval), the emulsion was not easy to break but we got very good results with the centrifuge.

I was frankly somewhat skeptical but the results were very good.

 

[supra88]

I would look into using a hydrocyclone. They are commonly used on off shore oil platforms for high flow water contaminated with oil. Preferably you'll want to use low shear pumps to keep your oil particle size as high as possible. Vortoil is a popular brand. Good LucK

 

[25362]

One venue to investigate would be electrostatic water precipitation. They are used, for example, to precipitate sulphuric acid out of alkylate. Voltages are high (about 20000 V) but currents are practically nil.

 

[reza35]

daf system followed by bio treatment is commonly used to remove emosified as well as disolved oil from oily water to the the extend of 0.1 ppm oil content.