From scale pits to cooling water and wastewater treatment areas or final discharge ponds, there are various points where oil is bound to meet and mix with water.

Overview

From scale pits to cooling water and wastewater treatment areas or final discharge ponds, there are various points where oil is bound to meet and mix with water throughout the steel production process.

Successfully removing and recovering oil from these various applications delivers significant benefits to those in the steel industry, including:

• Reduces wastewater treatment and discharge costs (i.e., chemicals, hauling charges, treatment-system maintenance).
• Improves efficiency of wastewater treatment.
• Improves the process for meeting wastewater disposal requirements.
• Maximizes the life of coolant fluid and filter equipment by removing oil that could cause deterioration.
• Avoids expensive repairs, costly production delays and rework by keeping residual lubricant and hydraulic fluid from collecting on production machinery.
• Reduces plant maintenance costs by capturing tramp oil before it enters cooling towers.
• Creates new revenue through the sale of recovered oil.

Applications

Common oil removal applications in the steel industry, include:

• Scaling pits that contain cooling water, cutting water and other production-related substances resulting from processes such as hot milling and casting
• Cooling water areas, such as collection tanks, pits and sumps, containing water used in cleaning coke-oven gases, quenching coke and slag, and cooling sinter, sintering plants, blast furnaces, rolls, bearings and other production equipment
• Wastewater treatment areas and plants intended to recirculate wastewater for reuse as much as possible before discharge
• Final discharge ponds where wastewater, oil and other substances are eventually discharged after reuse and recirculation