Oil Removal Solutions Blog

In the food processing industry, companies strive to deliver high-quality products, efficiently, and to ensure their production methods are environmentally friendly as possible.

Keep reading to learn more about:

• How smart food producers are investing in equipment that lowers costs, while enabling the manufacturing of high-quality products through efficient processes.
• How oil skimming equipment can effectively remove oil from the surface of other liquids (usually separating used cooking oil from wastewater for food producers).
• How food manufacturers have used tube-type oil skimmers to reduce costs for energy, waste treatment and waste removal—all while maximizing efficiencies. 

How to Winterize Your Oil Skimming Equipment

Oil Skimmers, Inc. offers a variety of winterization options that can work with already-installed skimmers to enable your facility to skim oil from wastewater on a continuous basis, all winter long.

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.

For 50 years, Oil Skimmers, Inc. has designed and developed oil skimmers, oil removal systems, and custom engineered solutions for over 35,000 applications in all industries, in 119 countries around the world.

Our company's founder invented the tube type oil skimmer to ensure efficient, effective oil removal in any application, small or large. Five decades later, we offer a full line of industrial oil removal equipment as well as custom engineering capabilities to meet every oil removal need.

The original Brill tube type oil skimmer remains a very important and versatile element of our product line, and is still one of the best methods available to remove oil from industrial process water and wastewater. Its design, rugged construction, durability, versatility, efficiency, and effectiveness is unsurpassed.

Success Stories: Heavy Equipment and Truck Washdown Facilities

Facilities that wash down heavy equipment or trucks often have to balance several operational priorities at once. For example, ensuring adequate washing of trucks/equipment while reducing operational expenses and meeting environmental standards.

For many, this balancing act can seem daunting; however, it doesn’t have to be. The following two companies with heavy equipment and truck washdown facilities recently found that they were able to meet all of their priorities with the assistance of a tube-type oil skimming system. 

Chemical plants that manufacture or otherwise process chemicals (on a large-scale) face unique challenges when it comes to wastewater management. While the equipment, technology and processes used at chemical plants varies, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Water Act requires plants to meet certain performance standards aimed at water pollution prevention and treatment.

Under the Act, the EPA has implemented pollution control programs such as establishing wastewater standards that require wastewater to be virtually free of oil and other contaminants. Chemical plants that don’t meet these standards can face large fines—up to $53,000 per day in some cases—making compliance, essential.

This Oil Skimmers, Inc. customer has been a producer of highly refined mineral oils for more than a century. The company’s white oil products, which are used in the formulation of lotions, creams, ointments and hand cleansers, require large amounts of water to make. The oily water from the refining process, along with tank washdowns and runoff, adds up to a substantial wastewater challenge. In an effort to improve its wastewater treatment process and increase overall plant efficiency, the company compared different oil skimmers. 

How Did We Do It?

Service

The sales, engineering and operations teams at Oil Skimmers, Inc. all worked together to devise a customized solution that met the customer’s stringent commercial and technical requirements. With Oil Skimmers, Inc., customers are not only guaranteed the very best in oil skimming technology, they are also provided superior customer service. When possible, we meet with our customers and visit their facilities. And, we always make it our mission to help solve their issues, address their challenges and devise solutions that will meet their individual needs.

“Our ability to design, build and ship 23 custom oil skimmers halfway around the word in just 120 days was a record for our company – and vital to the customer,” said President Mike Gaudiani, Oil Skimmers, Inc. “It was a challenge happily accepted and met.”