Oil Removal Solutions Blog

An integral part of being an engineer is staying up to date on new discoveries, developments, trends and news in your particular field. The ever-evolving nature of the job makes staying ahead of the curve a challenge, but necessary.

Finding a good source of relevant information amongst the plethora of available resources can be difficult and time consuming. That’s why we’ve rounded up 10 noteworthy resources for engineers. In no particular order:

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 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.

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. 

Emission control and waste management among top priorities for railroad industry today

On February 28, 1827, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first U.S. railway chartered for commercial transport of passengers and freight. 

Key facts about the first U.S. railway include:

• The Tom Thumb steam engine was designed by Peter Cooper
• The first railroad track was only 13 miles long
• Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone when construction on the track began 

(Source: Library of Congress)

Fast-forward 188 years. 

Here is a snapshot of what the railroad industry looks like today:

• 140,000 miles of railroad track
• 21 regional and 510 local railroads
• 221,000 jobs
• The rail network accounts for approximately 40 percent of U.S. freight moved by ton-miles (the length freight travels).

(Source: U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration)

A steady flow of technological innovations in electronics, construction, healthcare and other fields is driving the resurgence of copper mining throughout the world. In Peru alone, copper production jumped nine percent in the first three months of 2014.* Industry observers predict that the demand for copper will continue to grow at a fast clip for at least the next five years.

We just got back from the recent Shale Water Expo in Houston. This was the first conference and exhibition in the United States to focus on the natural gas drilling industry’s biggest issue:  water.

Water management is on everybody’s mind these days. Water, the high-cost, high-volume component in hydraulic fracturing, is more than just an operating expense. It has become an item of public concern that’s in the news every day. Not surprisingly, one conference panel featured a water engineer, hydrogeologist, recycling advocate, and regulators from the Texas Railroad Commission and the Department of Environmental Quality. Presentations by environmental experts, academics, industry thought leaders and entrepreneurs rounded out this timely summit.

Recently, an increasing number of companies in the oil and gas industry’s hydraulic fracturing wastewater disposal business have found employing efficient, low-maintenance oil skimming technology can bring sustained improvements to their bottom lines. We’re talking added monthly profits of $3,000 to $18,000. Sound appealing?

Wastewater disposal companies in Texas, West Virginia and Ohio, who have purchased oil skimmers to recover and sell oil that is present in the hydraulic fracturing wastewater being delivered to their facilities, have capitalized on this new revenue within just 2 to 3 months of using the technology. And, that’s not all. In addition to generating new revenue streams and delivering a nearly immediate return-on-investment, oil skimmers used in wastewater disposal applications also reduce operational costs and increase operational efficiency.