Systems and methods for treating a rag layer in a gas oil separation plant. The method includes withdrawing the rag layer from a vessel proximate an oil water interface, conveying the rag layer to a separation device, and recycling separated oil from the separation device back to the gas oil separation plant process.

Some embodiments of the technology disclosed herein relate to a system having a hydrodynamic separator element defining an element inlet and an element outlet. The element outlet has a first element outlet and a second element outlet. The hydrodynamic separator element has a plurality of curved microfluidic channels in fluid communication. Each of the plurality of microfluidic channels are arranged to operate in parallel. Each microfluidic channel defines a channel inlet downstream of the element inlet and a channel outlet having a first channel outlet upstream of the first element outlet and a second channel outlet upstream of the second element outlet. A flow characteristic sensor is in sensing communication with the separator element. A controller is in data communication with the flow characteristic sensor, where the controller is configured to provide a first alert upon the flow characteristic being outside a first threshold.

An oil, water, and solid impurity separation device capable of realizing crude oil gathering and transferring is provided, which includes: a centrifuge including a liquid mixing inlet communicated to an inside thereof, and pure crude oil outlets disposed at two sides of the liquid mixing inlet and used for injecting a filtered liquid; a strainer, an input end of which is connected with one pure crude oil outlet through a pipeline, a vacuum power assembly for providing power is arranged on the pipeline; a filtering assembly, an input end of which is connected with an output end of the strainer, two individual branches are formed by an output part of the filtering assembly and an oil discharging assembly, as well as the output part of the filtering assembly and an impurity discharging assembly, respectively; one branch is an oil outlet, and another branch is an impurity outlet.

A method for cleaning fuel oil for a diesel engine includes providing a fuel oil to be cleaned, supplying said fuel oil to be cleaned to a centrifugal separator, and cleaning said fuel oil in the centrifugal separator to provide a clean oil phase. The method further includes measuring the viscosity of the fuel oil to be cleaned before cleaning in said centrifugal separator or the viscosity of the clean oil phase, and regulating the temperature of the fuel oil to be cleaned based on said measured viscosity.

Provided are systems and related methods for processing organic polymeric feed materials—such as plastics—to form pyrolysis oil. The disclosed systems can be operated in a continuous manner and utilize novel liquid-solid separation techniques integrated with a novel condensing approach so as to operate in a product-efficient and an energy-efficient manner.

A method of processing thin stillage in an ethanol refining operation is provided. The method comprises treating thin stillage upstream of a concentration or evaporation step with an aid comprising a sorbitan ester of a fatty acid, an ethoxylated sorbitan ester of a fatty acid, or a combination thereof, thereby forming treated thin stillage. The aid may include at least one of sorbitan monooleate, polyoxyethylene sorbitan monostearate, and polyoxyethylene sorbitan monolaurate.

An entirely water-based, energy self-sufficient, integrated in-line waste management system is provided for comprehensive conversion of all organic fractions of municipal and wider community waste to fuels suitable for use in transportation, with all solid residues converted to high nutrition compost. The system is based on a combination of pre-treatment, involving alkaline hydrolysis and saponification; three-way separation of the pre-treated waste into different streams that are each directed to suitable further processing including fuel production; which includes biodiesel generation in a continuous-flow catalytic esterification unit, and anaerobic digestion to produce methane or other small molecule biofuel. Remaining solids are converted to compost in a quasi-continuous process.

A separation apparatus for separating hydrocarbons and water, comprising a vessel (1) and an insert (5, 6) within said vessel (1). The has a bottom (7), a conical wall (8) and a quiecer (10) at the top of the wall (8), which enclose a separation chamber (11). The insert (5, 6) has an inlet pipe (12) for a mixture of water and hydrocarbons and a spreader arrangement (13, 14) arranged inside the separation chamber (11), which directs an inflow of fluids in a tangential direction, setting the fluids into a tangential laminar swirl. The vessel (1) has at least one manhole (3, 4), and said insert bottom (7), wall (8) and quiecer (10) are assembled by a plurality of generally wedge shaped segments (7a-l, 8a-l, 10a-l) having a size that allows the segments (7a-l, 8a-l, 10a-l) to be brought through the manhole (3, 4).

A process of dewatering oil sands/coal tailings includes generating nanobubble water, mixing a chemical dispersant into the nanobubble water to form a nanobubble-dispersant mixture, adding tailings to the nanobubble-dispersant mixture to form a nanobubble-dispersant-tailings mixture, and agitating the nanobubble-dispersant-tailings mixture to form an agitated nanobubble-dispersant-tailings mixture having a solid portion and a liquid portion. The solid portion is thereafter separated from the liquid portion. The agitation may be a centrifugal motion or shaking motion to agitate the nanobubble-dispersant-tailings mixture The chemical dispersant may be sodium hydroxide dispersant for asphaltenes and the volume of the tailings added may be substantially equal to the volume of the nanobubble water generated. An oil layer may further be skimmed off the liquid portion a polymer clarifier may also be added to the liquid portion. The process may be applied to achieve accelerated tailings processing for rapid and economic environmental remediation.

A thermal cracking treatment train, comprising: a rotatable kiln reactor; the rotatable kiln reactor being configured to receive a polymeric feed material, the reactor defining at least one interior wall that bounds an interior volume of the reactor, the interior volume defining an entrance and an exit along a direction of feed material travel, the rotatable kiln reactor comprising a section that comprises one or more sweeping features configured to sweep, with rotation of the kiln, a portion of the at least one interior wall, the kiln comprising a section that comprises one or more lifter features extending from the at least one interior wall and configured to, with rotation of the kiln, encourage material disposed on the one or more features to fall into the interior volume of the interior kiln; a combustor configured to provide a heated gas to the rotatable kiln reactor; and a devolatilization train.