Cost-effective filters remove oil from water

Torbay Hospital recently approached maintenance specialist Wyko to find out if there was a viable alternative to an expensive method of removing waste water from an area around fuel oil storage tanks; having the contaminated water removed by tankers could cost up to £150 a week in wet weather. Moreover, had the water overflowed, the hospital would also have been faced with fines for non-compliance under tighter new regulations that require water with any potential oil contaminants not to be discharged into drains.

Wyko 'know how' paid dividends, as a new filtration system was designed using innovative Mycelx filter elements from specialist company Oil Remediation Technology. Supplied and installed by Wyko, the filter system not only fully complies with the new regulations but costs just £40 per month for replacement filter elements; the old ones can be disposed of safely and recycled, saving the hospital up to £600 each month – and potentially thousands of pounds a year.

Mycelx filterers were developed specifically for removing oil waste from water streams; the filtration unit supplied to Torbay Hospital was designed to operate with oil bund water, which contains silts as well as oil residues. The existing sump pump, rated at 5 l/minute, made it suitable to filter through a Mycelx 2.5 x 10inch cartridge. A 2.5 x 10inch x 5micron polypropylene filter cartridge was placed in front of the Mycelx cartridge to remove sediments and protect the Mycelx cartridge. The filter cartridges and housings were contained in an insulated GRP weatherproof cabinet.

Derek Campion, a filtration specialist from Wyko, specified the filters and developed the solution: "Most fluid filtration systems of this type are designed to remove water from oil, keeping the potentially corrosive element away from machined steel parts. It was unusual to find an application where we needed to remove a small amount of oil from a large amount of water; high flow capability and a simple reliable design was essential. We believe there is a huge potential market for this type of solution, especially with new tighter restrictions on waste water disposal.

"Facilities managers on large sites such as NHS hospitals face an incredible array of maintenance and service issues and cannot be expected to be an 'expert' in every field. Issues such as energy saving and environmental policies are notoriously difficult to apply across the board, and accessing specialist know-how from companies such as Wyko is a fast and effective way of realising those objectives efficiently using the best available technology".