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An AU coal fired plant was having issues with our tube skimmer. The facility uses our Oil Viper Tube Skimmer in its wastewater pit to clean out the hydrocarbons from the water. However, the pit is located outside and Eucalyptus leaves fall into the pit. The tube skimmer was not only pulling up the oil from the pit, it was pulling up the leaves as well. When the tube skimmer would skim the oil, the leaves would also skim and fall down into the trough below for collection. The abundance of collected leaves was clogging the trough and preventing the oil from going through the trough to be collected. The company reached out to Abanaki for a solution to the leafy issue. After going over the problem, an Abanaki engineer made a basket of sorts that will sit under the wipers and right above the trough. The leaves will fall into the basket before reaching the trough, and the oil will fall through the basket, into the trough below, and out to the collection barrel.

The Abanaki Oil Viper tube skimmer is a surface oil skimmer that effectively removes floating surface oils by means of an oleophilic (oil attracting) 3/4 inch diameter continuous looped tube. The tube extends out over the surface of the tank or pit and collects the free floating oils. The Oil Viper has a specially designed method for removing the oil from the tube. It has a unique wiper combination attached to the tube itself in addition to the ceramic wiper on the skimmer. The result is a virtually oil free tube as it leaves the surface oil skimmer for quicker oil removal. Removal rates can be as high as 100 gallons per hour.

The company has reported that the implementation of the basket has its operation running smoothly and the leaves no longer hinder the application. For more information and animated demos on the Oil Viper Tube Skimmer, click the photo below!