Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
~o~a7
A METHOD AND_SYSI`EM ~OR Cl,EANING UP A LARGE SCALE OIL SPILLS
Stateln_nt of Riq~lts to the Inventlon
Inventor : Kaæimierz S. Holubowicz;
Owner of the invention: Ka~imierz S. Holubowicz;
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of environment
protecting apparatuses and more particularly to machines
which separate oil or other non soluble liquids from water by
means of the specific gravlty differences between water and
the liquid in question, based on the acceleration of the
contaminated water.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art methods are not yet ready to deal with a
large scale spill of oil or petroleum products or the like.
They are mainly based on:
- chemical treatment of the spilled oil to decompose it,
- which causes environmental problems;
- bacterlal treatment of the spllled oll to remove lt from
from the envlronment, which is useless in cold waters
because bacterla do not reproduce below certaln
temperature;
- soaking some solld materials with oil, which ls not
realistic when hundreds of thousands of tons of crude is
spilled;
20~8~07
There is yet a preventive method used, which is calling
for a double hull construction of tankers. The last one has
recently become a law for tankers approaching Alaska.
The prior art methods are generally not readily subject
to recover the spilled oil. It would be useful for the
economical purposes to develop such a method which would
clean up the spill and recover completely or partially the
spilled oil. This invention provide a method and a system to
clean up a large spills of crude oil as well as recovery of
the spilled cargo.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides an effective method of gathering
a spilled oil from the ocean which comprises the following
steps: restricting a sucking of water, together with oil, by
providing a large plate under the layer of oil; restrictlng
the air sucking, together with oil, by providing a bell like
cover, much smaller in diameter than the mentioned plate,
which touches the oil layer on its top; sucking the oil
thorough the clearance between the mentioned
bell and the plate.
The inventlon also provides a method of oil/water
separation comprising steps:
- pumping the mentioned oily water;
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-- rapidly and continuousl~ charlging the direction of
flow o~ the mentioned olly water so two distinguished
layers of oil and water resulted;
- directing the mentioned distinguished layers to
separate outlets;
There is yet another method provided by this invention.
It is a method of cleaning up and recovery of large spills of
a crude oil or petroleum products resulted from a super-
tanker collision or sinking or punching its cargo tanks
comprising: gathering of an oily water from the ocean;
pumping tlle gathered oily water through a water/oil
separator; dumping the purified water resulted from the
previous step back into the ocean; collecting the oil
resulted from the previous steps;
Thls invention also provides an intake of the spilled
oil mounted on top of a floater containing: a pipe shaped as
"U"; a bell like cover of the pipe; a circle like plate
having a clrcular opening ln its center; a floater; and a
sucklng pump; whereby the mentioned "U" shaped pipe ls ended,
on the intake side of the pipe, with the mentioned circular
plate; the mentloned bell like cover is mounted on top of the
mentloned plate in a way that a clearance between the
mentioned plate and the bell is created and the mentioned
clearance is ad~ustable; the mentioned pump is mounted to the
other part of the mentloned "U" pipe with pump's sucking
side; wherein the pump is mounted on the mentioned floater in
2~68~Q7
such a way -that the mentiorled sucking end of the "U" pipe,
with the rnentLoned plate and bell like cover, i~ immerged in
the spilled oil so the oil is sucked into the pipe, and not
the water because the mentioned clearance was ad~usted to the
thickness of -the layer of the spilled oil - the mentioned
circular plate minimizes amounts of sucked water together
with oil.
The invention also provides an intake, which uses low
pressure chamber to "vacuum" the spilled oil, which is
mounted on a floater and additionally equipped in a pump to
direct the recovered oily water to an oil/water separator.
The invention is further directed towards a separator,
which uses a chan~e~ of the direction of the flow of an olly
water as means for separation of the oil from water,
comprising: an inlet of the mentioned oily water; and outlet
of the recovered oll from the water; an outlet of the
separated water; and a pipe winded as a coll; whereby the
said oily water is pumped through the mentioned pipe and
changes the dlrection of its flow and thls causes lnertial
forces whlch act on the components of the mixture, meaning
oil and water, in proportion to their density and that
separates oll from water and creates two layers that are
directed to separate outlets, meaning the oll outlet and the
water outlet; wherein the oil outlet is on the inner part of
the coll and the water outlet is on the outer part of the
coil;
~ ~ ~ 8 ~ Q r7
The lnventior, ls further directed towards a system for
cleaning up and recovery of an oil when a large spill of a
crude oil or petroleum products resulted from an accident of
a super-tanker collision or sinking or puncher of the cargo
tanks or the like, which comprises an intake, or an array of
intakes, which sucks a spill.ed oil from the ocean; a
separator or an array of separators which separates the
mentioned oil from water; a collecting tank, or a tanker, to
gather the recovered oil; whereby the mentioned intake sucks
the mentioned spilled oil and delivers it into the separator
which separates the oil from water and directs the separated
oil to the mentioned collecting tank or the tanker and dumps
the mentioned water resulted from oil/water separatlon back
into the ocean;
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiments of
the invention:
Figure 1 is a sketch of a prior art separator which uses
buoyant force as means for separation of oil from water;
Figure 2 illustrates a first embodlment of the invention
being a principle of separation of oil from water that is
based on a change of the direction flow of the oily water;
2a6~0~
Figure 2a illust:rates a next embodiment of the invention
and thls is a separator, which continuously separates an oil
from an oily water, ~sing the principle of figure 2;
Figure 3 illustrates a second embodiment of the
invention which is an intake of oily water from the surface
of the ocean;
Flgure 4 illustrates yet another embodiment of the
invention which is another intake of oily water from the
surface of the ocean;
Figure 5 illustrates a next embodlment of the invention
and thls is a system for cleanlng up a large spill of a crude
oil or petroleum products whlch recovers the spilled oil;
DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
With reference to figure 1 an oily water is delivered
through an on/off type of valve 1003 controlled manually or
by an automatic control (not shown in the figure to keep the
drawing simple). When tank 1002 is full a waiting time is
applled and the length of that time depends on the capacity
of the tank, kind of oil, temperature etc. It is the waiting
time which prevents from using the method to clean large
spills. The visual inspection glass 1004 is used to see if
the separation process is satisfactory and then a valve 1005
is opened and a water resulted from separation discharged.
When water is completely drain out of the tank 1002 then the
~2 ~
valve lOOS is closed and a valve 1006 is opened so an oil
separated from water is dralned out frorn the tank and
collected. When tank is empty the new cycle starts up.
With reference to figure 2 a principle of separation
based on a change of the direction of the flow is illustrated
as a nex-t embodiment of the inventlon. Let's consider an
elbow of a pipe through which a mixture of oil and water flow
(see fig. 2). soth masses 201 and 202 of water and oil causes
pressure differences between 206 inner wall and 205 outer
wall of the elbow. According to the Newton's first law the
fluid has tendency to move along a straight line.
Conservation of momentum of both 201 and 202 masses of water
and oil flowing through pipe causes an additional pressure
on the elbow wall 205, having larger radius 203,
independently from the static pressure in the liquid 207 in
the elbow and that pressure depends from the flow velocity
and densities of the mixture. It is so because the horizontal
velocity 208 of the mlxture completely vanlshes when mixture
reaches the end of the elbow. The pumping pressure, causing
flow, ls responslble for the change of flow dlrection so the
vertical velocity 209 gradually appears along the wall of the
elbow and it is equal to the flow velocity 209 at the outlet
from the elbow. The drop of horizontal velocity along the
elbow wall is gradual and can be used to estimate
acceleration which resulted from the flow change - from
horizontal to vertlcal. The resulted acceleration is easy to
predict for a given radius 203 of an elbow.
2~ 107
s = 1~/2 * R (1)
where
s - the max. length of the path at which the
acceleration appears;
R - the larger radius of the elbow;
The duration of acceleration resulted from the change of
direction of the flow depend~ on -the velocity of flow and
can be written as
T = s/v = ~: 2) * (R : v) (2)
. ~!'
where
T - duration of acceleratlon;
v - velocity of the flow through the elbow;
s - length of the outer wall of the elbow;
The acceleration can then be wrltten as ~3)
a = v/T = 2v2/~r~ * R) ~3)
where
a - acceleratlon resulted;
A force which ls re~ponsible for the separatlon can now be
introduced as a force difference between a force caused by
accelerated water and a force caused by an accelerated oil.
2 ~
It is obvious that equal volumes of both should be
considered because of the Archlmedes law. This force can be
written as the following:
S(v) = F(w) - F(o) (~)
where
S(v) - separation force;
F(w) - force resulted from separation of water;
F(o) - force resulted from separation of oil;
It is easy to find out these forces, using basics of physics
in the following:
Force = volume * density * acceleration
substitutlng (~) as acceleration in the above expression we
can find out the needed separation force.
The separation force acts continuously on the lighter
compound of the mixture towards the wall -of the smaller
radlus 206 (see fig. 2) and it is an analog to the buoyant
force, the force which was introduced by Archimedes. In
contrary to the buoyant force, this force results from the
dynamic~ of the flow of the mentioned mixture of oil/water
through an elbow and depends from:
- density difference of the compounds of the mixture;
- speed of pumping;
- radius of the elbow;
2 0 6 8 ~ Q r~
in the following way:
s = (YW -~o) * [2v2/(~ * R)] * v (4)
where
s - separation force between oil and water;
~w - density of water;
~o - density of oil;
V - volume of oil in the water;
It is worth adding that the expression 9 is correct for low
speeds of flow and need to be corrected for fast turbulent
flows in an experimental way.
With reference to fig. 2a a one section of a separator
which separates an oil from water is presented as yet another
embodiment of the lnvention. An oily water 2002 is delivered
into an inlet 2001 of the separator. A coiled pipe 2003,
which uses princlple presented in fig. 2, separates oil and
water onto two layers. An outlet of oil 2004 located on the
inner part of the coil 2003 drains the oil layer out through
an automatically controlled valve 2006. A transparent
insertlon in the pipe 2009 is used to detect the light
absorption of the dlscharged water wlth a laser beam 2008
and a photosensltlve element of a controller 2007 that
controls the dlscharge valve 2006. A water 2010 resulted from
the separation process ls drained out through an outlet 2005.
Wlth reference to flgure 3 an intake sucking an oil 3001
floating on the surface of the ocean, or river or lake, is
illustrated as a next embodlment of the lnvention. A pump
2 ~ 0 ~
d L~ f3~ t'; ~ .'' pi~,e ~1 lat~e
L O t f :'` () 0 ~ .1 t~ n l~ r !-1 e r t~ lit; imoullts of water
~U(~td t.i:)l~et~ f W~h O i~ Jon~!. Th-~le ~ "- is an ad~uc:table
c~)ver 3002 wl~ h prevents su(-ki~ all air together with the
ntic,rlel~ "i-l. Ther~ i, a clearance, brtween the cover 300~
tnd th. plato 80n2, th~ollgh which the mentioned oil is sucked
by tl-,e pl~l-np ~,on7. T~ ad justnlent of t:he c leararlce is clone
with p;~-iitiorleL~ no4. To pY~v~nt mL-ty the pipe ~06 when the
pump is r,ot: work;rlg a kackstop valve ~nQ8 is installed.
With referellce to the Eiyure 4 another inta~e of an oil
~loating on the ;llrface of the ocean is illustra-ted as a next
embodiment of this inventioll. A low pressure chamber 4Q05
mounted or, a Eloat:er (not shown) has its own pump 4004 which
lischarges oil collected by the low pressure. The low
pressure is l-nac~e by a la~tge Ean 4no7 mounted on top of the
chamber 4QQS. A pipe 40nh inserted into the low pressure
chamber 4QQ5 is "vacuuming" an oil from the surface of the
ocean. Positioners 4QQ~ position a large plate 4Q02 so a
clearance 9008 is as thick as the mentioned layer of oil. The
plate 4QQ2 prevents water from "vacuumlny" in. A pump 40Q4
controlled by the level in the low pressure chamber pumps the
load of the chamber to a separator. It would be obvious to
those skilled in the art that segments of the separator
could be mounted in series or in parallel or both and that
depends on the actual need and -the magnitude of the spill as
well as the type of oil and surroundiny temperature.
2~5~
With reference to figure 5 a system which cleans a
large spills of a crude oil and recovers the oil from the
splll is pre~ented as another embodirnel-t of this inventlon. A
tanker 50n5 on the deck of which an array of separators 5006
Is mounted. A pipe line huild from a flexible segments 5003
mounted on floaters 5002 connected with quick connectors 5004
delivers oily water pumped by an intake 5001 to the separator
5006. The separator separates an oil 5008, which is recovered
and collected, from the oily water. A purified water 5007
resulted from the separation process is dumped back into the
ocean. The tanker should be equipped in up to 50 intakes and
separators.
As wlll be apparent to those skllled in the art varlou~
modification and adaptations of the structure described may
be made without departlng from the spirit of this lnventlon,
the scope of which is to be construed in accordance with the
accompanying claims.
