If you’re involved in treating oil-contaminated slops and sludges, it’s likely you use a centrifuge in your treatment process.

We love centrifuges and centrifuge operators, and in most cases, they love us as well. This is because centrifuges almost always improve the effectiveness of SAS chemicals, and SAS chemicals almost always improve the performance of centrifuges.

Due to this love / love relationship, we’ve spent a lot of time with centrifuge operators, and during that time we’ve picked up some “tricks of the trade” that we’ve seen improve a centrifuge’s sludge-splitting capability.

Below are the top 7 tips we’ve picked up from the experts in the field:

1.

Pre-screen your waste feedstock using small scale equipment and modify your treatment approach accordingly. A small lab centrifuge using 50ml tubes is ideal. These can often be found on eBay for $300 - $800. Make sure to get transparent 50ml tubes.

2.

Use heat if available. It’s not always needed but if you have it and it is not overly costly heat can help improve the results and keep chemical dosing lower.

3.

Determine the solids, water and oil content of your waste prior to full operations. This will help to judge how to control the solids loading. A solids content over 20% quickly slows down the process and also requires more chemistry. If the solids can stay between 5% - 15% things should go just swimmingly!

4.

Blend lighter slops/waste material with heavier waste rather than adding water. This can help treat the heavier waste. First test both wastes in the lab. You don’t want to find out you created an untreatable waste. An hour in the lab can save thousands of dollars in the field.

5.

Have accurate ways to measure key variables such as feed stock throughput, chemical dosing, centrifuge speed, g-force, scroll speed/depth, etc. Access to these measurements will allow you to tune the system for best results. Knowledge is power after all. Invest in flow meters. It’s good to know.

6.

Reduce operating variables wherever possible. This is one of the reasons most operators prefer using a decanter centrifuge instead of a tricanter centrifuge. When treating oil waste slops and sludge a tricanter is very difficult to setup right as the waste changes. A decanter combined with our chemicals will separate out the solids. The oil and water will then phase separate in a tank or pit.

7.

Do not exceed 25% solids loading/content. If you exceed 25% solids loading, there is a good chance of plugging the centrifuge. Not a good thing.

Any decanter operators out there who have other tips and guidance do let us know! Send an email or add a comment.