Custom Belt Oil Skimmer Endures Tough Environment and Reduces Costs
A Grease Grabber Success Story
The Abanaki Grease Grabber, a hardy belt oil skimmer designed to handle the toughest of wastewater conditions.
A steel manufacturer in Warren, Ohio, needed a unique solution to a fairly common problem – removing grease and other contaminants from their outdoor circulating water system.
Each week, the mill uses 200 gallons of grease on a roll out table to keep steel slabs from rolling off the caster. Much of this grease is washed into a 40,000 gallon outdoor interceptor pit by spraying cooling water on newly poured slabs. If grease isn’t removed before filtering, the system’s sand bed quickly becomes clogged.
Before turning to Abanaki, Bob Gregory, supervisor of caster water treatment at the mill, tried several methods of grease removal with little luck. He was still looking for a custom-designed oil skimmer that required minimal upkeep when he discovered Abanaki Corporation.
Belt Oil Skimmer Handles Heavy Grease
Abanaki provided Gregory with the Grease Grabber®, a state-of-the-art belt oil skimmer that makes use of the differences in specific gravity and surface tension between oil and water. This allows the skimmer’s belt to continuously attract grease, oil and other hydrocarbon liquids as it passes through the surface of the water, even under turbulent conditions.
Abanaki customized several features on the belt oil skimmer to meet the steel mill’s unique needs. First, the belt’s length was modified to ensure that its surface stays firmly in contact with the 14-ft of pit water, even at its lowest level. A heavy-duty drive was used to ensure the belt and drive assembly will elevate skimmed grease from virtually any tank depth. CRV wiper blades were beefed up to more effectively remove grease in cold temperatures. Furthermore, Abanaki increased the pulley shoulders of the belt to keep it centered, even when subjected to twisting caused by turbulence. A number of additional features were designed-in to meet the steel mill’s asks that the unit be low maintenance.
According to Gregory, “With the current design, we have a system that works and it survives in our outdoor environment…By protecting our sand bed filter, it pays for itself.”
