Oil Removal Solutions Blog

Water plays an important role in most industrial processes and is often mixed with oil as a result. Removing oil from water early and often by way of skimming is key in maintaining a healthy process. In fact, if ignored, oily water could be detrimental to your productivity, reputation, and ultimately, your bottom-line.

In this post, we’ll present six potential consequences if oil is not separated and removed from water early in the water treatment process.

Removing oil in the process or wastewater stream is critical to maximizing efficiencies within your operation. So, how can you start removing oil?

Oil skimmers offer the greatest flexibility when integrating this function into your existing workflow.

Choosing the right partner for your application will lead to the most effective installation and a larger ROI. As the first in their field, the Oil Skimmers Inc. team has the experience and continues to set the standard for providing what every customer should expect. Read on for six steps to choose the right partner.

Inadequate oil removal equipment could be costing your manufacturing company money.

In this post, we discuss how tube type oil skimmers—those that use a closed-loop tube on the water’s surface to attract floating oil or grease—can save you money compared to alternatives.

1. Efficiently Removes Oil

Because they can’t get clogged with floating debris (leaves, sticks, etc.), tube skimmers consistently outperform fixed oil skimmers (belt, drum and disc) at efficiently and reliably removing petroleum-based oil, fats, greases, and oily wastes on the water’s surface. The tube simply snakes around the water, moving the debris aside, as it removes the oil.

2. Lowers Filtration, Water Treatment and Disposal Costs

Effective oil removal translates into less costs related to filtration, chemicals and other forms of secondary water treatment.

And it doesn’t stop there. Since tube skimmers capture and concentrate waste oil with little-to-no free water, disposal costs are also less. Higher waste oil concentrations lessens the volume and cost of vacuum collection, and off-site recycling or disposal.

Whether you’re part of a small team or working for a large organization, there are always ways to fine-tune your internal manufacturing processes—sometimes with very little investment.

One of these investments is oil skimming. With one new solution, your team could see improved asset performance, less downtime, and ultimately, advanced efficiency.

In this post, we look at five ways environmental and process engineers can increase efficiency from start to finish—primarily with oil skimming.

Doing nothing about floating waste oil?

At Oil Skimmers, Inc., we think our products are the best in the world at removing floating waste oil in industrial maintenance applications. We have a lot of reasons for saying that and sometime we’ll talk more about those reasons, but what never ceases to amaze me is the number of times we compete against the alternative of a customer “doing nothing” with their floating waste oil.

Doing nothing, that is, not skimming floating oil, can be an option for certain customers. So we are often in the position of educating the customer to the benefits of recovering waste oil versus letting it accumulate.

So, Why Should You Skim Oil?

There are several reasons why floating waste oil in an industrial environment should be skimmed.

Wastewater treatment is a major challenge for organizations across a variety of industries. To better understand why this is the case, consider the following scenario.

A privately held potato chip plant hoped to increase its snack production by 20% to roughly 72 million pounds a year. However, the plant faced a major obstacle to achieving this goal: While cleaning the fryers throughout production, large amounts of oil mix with wash water.

Not to mention the plant discharges a whopping 180,000 gallons of water each day.

After installing an oil skimmer to remedy the issue, the plant was able to successfully remove about 2,000 gallons of oil per week from the wastewater system.

Read on to see how this change benefited the potato chip plant in the long run, and how oil skimming could work for you too.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Skimming oil early refers to removing oil as close as possible to the point of origin—ideally, where oil first enters the wastewater stream from the process that generates it.

The earlier you skim oil, or grease and fats, the more benefits you’ll see. Early oil removal can result in cost savings you might not have considered possible before now. By removing oil early, you can lower your water bills, lower your wastewater treatment rates, and see increased efficiency. You may even reap a handy payback if enough oil is recovered for reuse, or to be sold.

Read on for five use cases in which skimming early paid off.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Waste oil doesn't have to be a burden to plant personnel. Using an oil skimmer ensures that oil will be removed with minimal effort. With the right equipment, a facility can manage the oil effectively while saving time and money.

Plant personnel are always looking for new tools and equipment to help them run their facility more efficiently. In many manufacturing and processing plants, oily water is present, which prevents a plant from functioning at its maximum productivity level.

Water has several purposes in a manufacturing or processing facility: It can be used for cooling machinery, washing down equipment, or in processing. Sometimes, this water picks up oil or grease from surrounding machinery and equipment. Regardless of whether the facility chooses to reuse the water or send it to the city treatment plant, it has to remove the oil. Some plants, however, are not properly equipped to remove oil effectively.

An oil skimmer is an ideal solution.

You don’t have to wait long to see the results.

Oil skimming can have an immediate and sustained impact on your business. In fact, a Brill® tube-type oil skimmer can pay for itself within a few months through process efficiency gains, new revenue streams, and reduced equipment and labor costs.

In this post, we look at seven key differences you’ll notice right away once you begin skimming and separating oil from water.