Liquid purification or separation – Processes – Separating
Patent
1995-03-23
1997-01-28
Upton, Christopher
Liquid purification or separation
Processes
Separating
2104331, 210484, 210496, 210DIG5, C02F 140
Patent
active
055974937
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The problem of separating oily or hydrocarbon substances (hereinafter simply referred to as "oils") dispersed into aqueous solutions, namely of the total separation of the insoluble oily phase from the aqueous phase containing the dispersed fraction of the oily phase, has been examined by various experts, and different techniques have been proposed and used up to date.
In the separation process, the difficulty notably increases when wishing to reduce to a minimum the residual amount of oils in water, after separation. This difficulty determines also an increase in the operating costs.
The known techniques adopted so far include, for example, absorption on active substances (e.g. active carbon), distillation, decantation through packed blades, ultrafiltration and centrifugation.
All the aforecited techniques show some inconveniences which greatly limit their feasibility, especially when operating on large quantities of water which must be "cleaned" from oil residues to the greatest possible extent: gravimetric separations, for instance, are limited by the availability of sufficient differences of density between the aqueous phase and the oily phase, especially when treating very fine emulsions: thermic separations involve considerable energy costs and are unproposable for application on a vast scale, as in oil separation from surface waters; the techniques making use of membranes have the drawback of low productivity and suffer from fouling problem.
It is of common knowledge, now-a-days, that huge volumes of oil-polluted surface waters have to be treated so as to restore the proper environmental conditions, since the presence of oils is harmful for the environment, the water life and the general use of the water resources. There is hence at present an unsatisfied demand for an innovating technology, apt to be economically applied--in removing oils from water--on a vast scale.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The main object of the present invention is to provide a solution to the technical problem set forth hereabove.
The present invention therefore proposes a device to separate two components of a mixture of at least partially non-miscible liquids, characterized in that it consists of a hollow body having an inlet port to feed said mixture, a first outlet port and a second outlet port to respectively discharge the separated heavier and lighter components of said mixture, and a filter thoroughly soaked--until all air is expelled therefrom--with one of the components of said mixture, said filter being positioned between said inlet port and the outlet port of the soaking component.
Preferably, one of said liquids is water--or a liquid similar to water or apt to be mixed therewith--and at least another one is an oily liquid, and said filter is formed of hydrophilic material.
The invention also proposes a method to separate two components of a mixture of at least partially non-miscible liquids, carried out into a chamber having an inlet port to feed said mixture and outlet ports to discharge the separated components, characterized in that it comprises the following preliminary discontinuos step: outlet ports into one of the components of said mixture, up to fully expelling any air trapped in the filter, and thoroughly soaking the filtering bed; deaerated filter under a predetermined hydrostatic head; in the soaking step a), from the outlet port facing the side of the filter opposite to that facing the inlet port; same side of the filter as the inlet port.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
Further characteristics and advantages of the present invention will anyhow be more evident from the following detailed description, given with reference to the accompanying drawing, which is a diagrammatic cross-section view of a preferred embodiment of the device according to the invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
As shown on the drawing, the device 1 consists of a static hollow body 2, which defines a chamber 3 and is provided with a side inlet port 4 to feed the mixture 11 to be
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Italtraco S.r.l.
Upton Christopher
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