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CTI and Suparator® Collaborate to Improve Oil Removal, Reduce Water Waste

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CTI and its founders have been part of the Suparator team for over 15 years. They’ve always led the market in cutting edge applications of this globally patented technology – from fitting this system to immersion and spray washers for the fastening, appliance, and aerospace industries to the extraction of valuable oils from various herb and nut plants. Their experienced team of sales and service personnel have always been at the forefront.

Recently, CTI’s ownership approached Suparator and asked that we look at some of their more recent applications in industrial water pre-treatment. As air and water discharge criteria have gotten more and more stringent, methods for the effective reuse, treatment, and recycling of manufacturing fluids have increased in their development and use. These fluids include spent wash solution, machining coolant, steam condensate, other aqueous based solutions. Frequently, one of the more difficult constituents of these wastes is oil.

Oil complicates treatment – it can boost treatment costs tremendously. As ubiquitous as it is, oil and oily emulsions still represent some of the toughest wastes to cost effectively treat. A method that is regaining in popularity is evaporation. This method can use either waste heat from other processes in a manufacturing site or gas / electric elements to boil water over time to form water vapor and an increasingly thick remnant material consisting concentrated waste material. This method typically can concentrate water based wastes by a factor of 10. In addition, the water vapor, if condensed as part of the treatment process, is pure water with a wide variety of uses. In order to minimize costs to evaporate water (water requires 8000+ BTU for each gallon), oil should be removed as completely as possible. Oil can prevent water at the surface from vaporizing easily causing that required btu’s to increase tremendously. Oil layers can cause a “blanket” on top of the boil chamber hindering evaporation and evaporator installation.

In addition, the oily material left in the boil tank can form a sticky, thick ‘tar’ that adheres to heating elements and severely limit heat transfer to the surrounding water. This can also increase required energy and can be difficult – if not impossible – to remove from heating elements causing their premature failure.

Suparator Evaporator Pre-treatment

Figure 1 shows a simple application of Suparator to remove all oils prior to entrance into the evaporation chamber. Effective oil removal, using a technology like Suparator that is capable of continuously removing all the oil present, can directly improve several aspects of the overall evaporation process – and at the same time, drastically reduce costs.

At a recent installation a large arms manufacturer in Connecticut, the attached oil removal and particulate control system resulted in a 70% decrease in hauled waste from the original evaporator installation. In addition, the evaporator maintenance was reduced by 90% in terms of periodic cleaning labor, waste hauling, and burner replacement.

By effectively pre-treating the water, prior to evaporation, the vaporization of the water, and the resulting 95% reduction in waste volume, can be done in a more efficient, safe, and cost effective way.

For more information, please contact: Josh Anfang, Sales and Marketing Coordinator, josha@ct-industries.com, (562) 773-6830.

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