Turning Waste Frying Oil into Recoverable Value at Golden West Foods Company
A Model 8 Oil Grabber Success Story
The circulating water system at Golden West Foods’ (GWF) Bedford, VA plant handles more than 200 gallons of frying oil every day. Oil enters the wastewater drains during sanitary washdowns, carrying sediment from the coating on products like onion rings and French toast made in house. Unfortunately, that oil sediment plugs bends in the piping that return oil to the fryer filter, causing messy overflows.
To keep the plant’s water system in peak condition and prevent overflows, oil must be removed continuously from the wastewater streams. When carried out efficiently, the recovered oil can be sold for various uses.
Tank Skimmer Reclaims Frying Oil to Improve Wastewater Performance and Reduce Maintenance Demands
Chuck Tucker, maintenance manager with GWF, inspects the Abanaki Oil Grabber Model 8.
For years, GWF relied on a pump-powered floating suction tank skimmer with a 300+ gallon per hour removal capacity. This high suction rate resulted in a great deal of water pickup in the skimmed product, which lowered the oil’s salvage value. After screening large debris and passing through an intermediate storage area known as the wet well, collected contents are pumped into the plant’s 100,000-gallon equalization tank. This tank provides a buffer for the waste treatment plant and holds “the floating suction skimmer that we previously used,” says Tucker. “The skimmer frequently became clogged, so it was impossible to leave the unit unattended.”
In need of a better tank skimmer as a result of these problems, the company installed an Abanaki Oil Grabber® Model 8. According to Chuck Tucker, maintenance manager at GWF, the belt skimmer makes for very effective oil removal. It can remove up to 40 gallons of oil per hour—more than enough to account for the oil washed off during the plant’s three-shift operation. Because there is adequate dwell time to allow thorough separation of oil and water, the unit is installed in the plant’s wet well.
Model 8 Oil Grabber Oil Skimmers work on the principle of surface tension: oil and other hydrocarbons are picked up as the belt breaks the surface of the contaminated liquid. After traveling over the head pulley, the belt passes through tandem wiper blades where oil is scraped off both sides and discharged. “We selected the Abanaki unit because of its reliability and low maintenance, which allows continuous unattended operation,” says Tucker. “Other separation technologies are effective, but most are more complex than skimming.”
