OilEClear · Development of a safe, compact, highly efficient, economic and fully automatic electrolytic treatment system for separation of emulsified oil from wastewater of ships (bilge) and oil rigs (slop)

The project OilEClear will develop a treatment system for oily wastewater at ships and oil rigs, enabling these to meet current and future bilge and slop water regulations with regard to oil hydrocarbons (THC), dissolved organics and toxic metals. OSPAR has set the discharge limit to 30 ppm oil in slop. IMO resolution MEPEC 107(49) sets the limit to 15 ppm oil in bilge, which complies with EU directive MED 96/98/WC. Some countries practice a limit of 5 ppm. With the currently available treatment technologies, it is a great challenge for the ship and rig owners/operators to meet the regulations regarding discharge of oily wastewater. A huge market is therefore open for better alternatives. The OilEClear project aims at a new, patentable electro-coagulation treatment system, meeting a THC standard of 5 ppm which also removes organics and toxic metals. The OilEClear system will separate emulsified oil from water by use of a novel three-phase separator design. Effluent data and operation will be integrated with process control by use of ultrasound measurement of flow and particles and automatic logging and monitoring of THC by UV-fluorescence. The project will be coordinated by Westmatic AB( Sweden). As electrode cell and separation unit technology provider, they will post project sell the fully integrated systems and service to the market. The other project partners in the project include the SME IMU-TEC OY (Finland) who will be apply their knowledge in aerosols cleaning and waste gas from reactor, SME NaCoM AS (Norway) who will contribute with their experience of integration of on-board system for ships and rigs, the end user and LE Stena Line (Sweden) who will contribute with end user requirement guidance and the RTDs Teknologisk Institutt AS (Norway) and Fraunhofer IGB (Germany) who will perform the majority of the RTD work in the project.