• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.132-143
• /
• 1997

Removal of spilled oil over the sea and the river has become one of the urgent problem in these days. Removing oil using mechanical devices are recommended because chemical dispersion can cause the secondary contamination in the environment. In the present study a series of experiments were carried out to study the effect of working conditions of a belt type skimmer on the rate of recovery for the spilled oil. The oil chosen for the present experiment was diesel oil. Three different situations, namely, upward, downward, up-and-downward pickup have been investigated for various contact angles, belt speeds and oil thicknesses. The results show that the rate of oil recovery for the case of downward pickup with a contact angle of 45.deg. shows the highest among all the conditions. For the removal of spilled diesel oil the optimal belt speed can be found as the critical value to reach the saturated pickup rate for a given oil thickness. The recovery rate of bunker C oil shows 4-6 times higher than that for diesel oil. And the optimal belt speed for bunker C oil can be found less than that for diesel oil for the same slick thickness.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.34-39
• /
• 1999

Removal of spilled oil over the sea and the river has become one of the urgent problems in these days. Removing oil using mechanical devices by adhesion method is known to be closely related with the problem of estimating the thickness of film remaining on the surface of solid withdrawn from a quiescent liquid. In the present study a series of experimental results are compared with the analytic estimation for the thickness of film remaining on the solid surface using non-dimensional analysis. For the case of pure water both results show the remarkable agreement. However, discrepancy has been found for the case of Bunker C oil and diesel oil. The analytic estimation over-predicts the experimental value for the case of Bunker C oil and under-predicts it for the case of diesel oil. Further study is required to investigate the real situation including a contact angle and the property difference between oil and water.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.34 no.5
• /
• pp.457-464
• /
• 2010

Representative methods for removing spilled oil include mechanical skimming, chemical treatment, burning at the surface of the spilled oil, and microbiological degradation. Among these methods, mechanical skimmer is the most efficient. Mechanical skimming can be classified into the following categories: belt-type, disk-type, weir-type, drum-type. We designed models with a submerged orifice for use in our experiments, for an objective and systematic evaluation of the recovery efficiency of mechanical skimming. Basically, oil is lighter than seawater and hence tends to float on the surface of the latter if there is sufficient time for floating. The present skimmer is kind of wear-type with the submerged orifice for seawater to be squeezed through, minimizing water content in the tank. From the experimental results, we identify the parameters that influence the oil recovery rate and recovery efficiency. The recovery efficiency can be enhanced by increasing the thickness of the oil layer in the first oil accumulative tank.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.208-215
• /
• 2017

When persistent oil, such as crude oil or Bunker C oil, is spilled at sea, viscosity increases through the weathering process. Equipment that can collect this oil when mixed with floating marine debris is very limited. In this study, devices that can be attached to the outside of existing oil skimmers have been applied to the inside of the main body, to develop an unmanned conveyor belt type floating marine debris and high viscosity oil recovery skimmer, which is composed of a conveyor belt, a sweeper with a forced inflow device, and a collection tank equipped with a buoyant body. The resulting skimmer was operated at a speed of 1.2 knots at a distance of 30 m in a sea area test. It was stable when moving laterally in any direction. An oil recovery performance test was conducted using a portable storage tank, and oil was recovered from a minimum of $7.8k{\ell}/h$ to a maximum of $23.3k{\ell}/h$. Moreover, recovery of $7.7k{\ell}/h$ was obtained in a wave water tank test with floating marine debris such as PET bottles and oil mixed. If the equipment developed in this study was used in the field for oil pollution accidents, it could be expected to contribute to improved response capability. We believe our equipment could be used in further studies to improvement the performance of existing portable oil skimmers.