"
Recovery and Reuse of Oil
Extracted from Industrial Waste Water
GORDON J, SCHUTT, Design Engineer
CHARLES C. KEIL, Maintenance Engineer
STEVE J. HALASZ, Laboratory Supervisor
Ford Motor Company
Brookpark
Cleveland, Ohio
The two Cleveland Engine Plants of the Ford Motor Company constitute a
major manufacturing center for automobile and truck engines and engine components. In these two separate plants, the company produces six and eight cylinder
automobile engines along with a line of super-duty truck engines.
At this complex two industrial waste treatment plants are maintained to accept the process waste effluent from the Engine Plants.
As manufacturing techniques grow more complex, the proper handling and
disposal of process waste water constitutes an ever increasing liability to the
management of every manufacturing concern. Moreover, the disposal, efficient
recovery and secondary utilization of waste products often presents a unique, increasingly difficult challenge to the plant engineer.
TREATMENT FACILITIES
The view of the waste treatment plants has been analogous to the approach
taken with the Engineer Plants-, first that the principal product of the plants satisfy
the consumer, and second that the operation of the plants be efficient. With this
philosophy in mind, both types of facilities, the Engine Plants and the waste
treatment plants, are continually evolving through improvements in equipment
and improved efficiencies in the use of raw materials. Specifically, the raw materials used by the waste treatment plants are the process waste effluent from the
Engine Plants and the chemicals used for treating this waste. The output of the
waste treatment plants consists of clarified water, a sludge slurry, and skim oil.
The sludge slurry from the clarifier is transferred to holding lagoons for disposal,
and the sKim oil, previously, was hauled away. Attention was focused on the
skim oil hauling costs, especially after it was established that it contained 70 per
cent water. Because a waste oil reclaimer was paid approximately one cent a
gal to remove this skim oil, it was reasoned that, if it was possible to reduce the
water content, the disposal cost would be proportionately reduced. Laboratory
investigation of the skim oil proved that most of the oil was coupled to the water
as an inverted emulsion. The immediate task was to find a practical way of disassociating the water and oil. The experiments initially involved electrolytic
disassociation, ultra-centrifuge, and at first, acid chemical treatments. All
these techniques showed either marginal success or complete failure. Eventually,
a commercial de-emulsifying agent which showed enough promise in the laboratory to warrant a full scale test was tried. The results proved to be successful to
the point that complete separation of oil and water was effected. In fact, upon
examination of the oil recovered, it was of such good quality that it was determined to find an application for it in the Engine Plants.   A survey of the pur-
- 493 -