Oil versus Water

The outside storage tank is equipped with a shelf below the oil intake to try and keep the water down, so to speak. It also has an internal heat tube that travels from one end of the tank to the other and then back again. When I built this tank I tried to think ahead and fabbed up what I thought might be needed in the future. I also made a clean out door on the top with a ladder inside for sludge removal if needed. The furnaces are metered at the burner and are supplied with appr 35 lbs of oil pressure via 1/2 inch piping. At each burner their are oil regulators to then reduce the pressure before mixing with compressed air. I am not sure I can return any oil back to the tank with changing out both furnace supply pumps due to the lack of flow. Additionally, the closest furnace has about 70 ft of pressurized oil line running to it and the other has about 140 ft. I would guess the oil would be substantially colder when it finally reached the day tank, even with insulation. I had a thought today... What if I fabbed up a crude water separator in between the outside gear transfer pump and the inside tank. At this point I am thinking of using the flow o oil from outside to inside (which has to be done anyway), but run it through a series of sch 40 pipe that turns the oil up a straight pipe for a distance (say 8 or 10 ft) then turns through a u bend and travels back down to the bottom. At the bottom tap a 1/2 npt hole and drop further down to collect the water. Then repeat. Basically, use the flow of the oil when filling the day tank to separate. I would assume the fast the flow the more effective. That outside gear pump is fast. I could even restrict the flow just above the bottom to increase the oil's velocity before hitting the turn to try and "sling" more water out??? It is a crude design in my head right now. What are your thoughts? I suppose it would work in the same theory as a centrifuge. Also, I am very familiar with Racors. Got a bunch of them in stock. Tried them, they reach full capacity very quickly and are expensive to replace elements. Even when I stock the filters. They do work quite well in engine applications that are requiring around 20 to 30 gph, but this pump runs around 20 to 30 gpm.

The best way we discovered was allowing the water to freeze by leaving the drums outside on a cold day and then pumping the oil out .This was on a small scale using 55 gallon drums ,but I wonder if it could be done on a larger scale by having a primary tank outside and piping it inside.You would have to periodically have a heating element to melt and drain the water , we just rolled the drums back in.

I assume your tank is inside to maintain viscosity and access but just a thought.

I wonder if it would be possible to apply a refrigerant and actually freeze the tank

itself to achieve the same result .Finally have you ever tried Aquasorb brand filters

they remove a lot of water but on your scale I guess would be expensive.

Hi. I am just a novice but it seems to me that if "supply is not an issue", then the emulsion can be accumulated and, given enough storage capacity, the emulsion will slowly separate and the fractions can be drawn from the bottom as fuel and from the top to be processed as waste water.

Another thought is that you can expose the emulsion to a lipophilic substrate to help extract the oil. A Google search on ~~~ oil mop international ~~~ brings up several sources for oil adsorbent pads as well as the address of Oil Mop International, Belle Chase, Louisiana. This company's business is separating oil from water. Maybe they have a more pertinent answer??

How would the oil absorbent pads or other oil absorbent materials aid the filtration of the oil to remove water? The flow rates through these are terrible and get less efficient as they get loaded with oil and then water.

Good Luck, Old Salt

I have not tried those filters. I will look into them. Thanks. I am familiar with oil absorbent pads, booms, and loose bags. We use it often in our salvage operations and to generally clean up around the yard. Heck, even the old yard loader runs around with a couple of pads in it below the four wheel steering valves due to leakage! I wi definitely give them a call though. Thanks! As far as our scale, around here we are larger than anyone else recycling oil into heat. The barrel trick works great, but even with our engine driven transfer pump it can take an hour to pump off 50 gallons when it is 10 or so degrees outside. I guess I want my cake and I want to eat it too... I want to separate most of the water out, but I do not want to take forever and spend a bunch of money. Haha. I know where this generally leads...

Subsequent experimentation, around the time of the BP gulf oil spill, indicated that the hardest part of maintaining combustion in a unit such as the OP has is the maintenance of a consistent emulsion. If not done the flame cannot be maintained by automatic devices or manual adjustment.

This problem is also one that the processors of oil emulsions by burning have encountered for years. Several ways to reduce this effect, but certainly not eliminate the problem, are available but on a one-of-a-kind in-house development basis. Oil/water emulsions are very subject to ambient conditions. An emulsion of the "chocolate mousse" concentration can be difficult to treat in one area but easier in another area.

Some in the business say there is a lot of witchcraft or spirituality involved with getting good results. I can't verify that because our spills didn't leave the river or bays and get to the ocean.

Good Luck. Old Salt

"I would expect it to burn and add a great deal of heat to the boiler....cleaning the firebox at the same time!!"

Wouldn't that depend on the oil / water ratio - or more specifically the combustion energy to water phase energy ratio?

If the emulsion was sprayed into the boiler wouldn't the water absorb thermal energy because of the heat of vaporization of the water? What would that do to the pressure in the combustion chamber?

Do these things atomize the fuel before injection into the boiler?

Maybe get your hands on some old diesel unit injectors and find a way to adapt them to your process; maybe mixing in some good stuff with the wet stuff before injection to ensure a much higher fuel combustion energy to water phase energy ratio?

What causes a steam explosion?

Have you ever seen the demo of water (any temperature) being added to a hot oil fire (any oil that will burn by the way)?

Here are some videos of this happening for your edification, the first one is interesting at about the 4 minute mark, so be patient!:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC45vREoEOg

This one takes less time if you are in a rush:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljeiZpZ32vw

And this one, due to a "time warp" is even quicker:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9gwRkMysk

Did you actually look at any of the links I included in that previous post? One of which even mentioned the cleaning effects of added water to an oil burner....you may not have posted if you had done some reading first!!

We used to clean running Gas Turbines in the RN with both fresh water and crushed walnut shells (not at the same time!) to clean the turbine blades without dismantling!! That was in the 60's and 70's....

I am personally convinced that it should be easily possible to burn an oil emulsion within an already burning hot oil fire, using the emulsion injection as a sort of "wet" afterburner, not as the main fuel....

Not forgetting someone's else idea of possibly adding alcohol to the emulsion, if it proves difficult.....alcohol absorbs water and is itself easily burnt.....but I do not think that it needs that....

When I was investigating the biofuel diesel systems there was a company that supplies absorbent pellets that can be cleaned by heating and had extremely long life so if you search the reclaimed vegetable on google you should find it and other items. One of my past associates had a cooking oil reclaiming business and he sold it by the tanker truck load and used two small centrifuges. They ran day and night but removed all water and down to 2-5 micron of solids. I also have a friend that produces food grade animal oils and he uses centrifuges and there is nothing slow about his process as he ships 40,000 liters every month.

Have you considered mixing Methanol/Ethanol with the emulsified oil?

also look at this for an answer.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22698673

or this:

http://www.alken-murray.com/860-1.htm

If the emulsified oil/water is allowed to float on the removed water, it may be possible to skim it off with a rotary skimmer. Good idea or bad?