Steel Manufacturing: Return to Case History Listings Page Reprinted from Iron Age Kaiser Steel Turns Waste Oil to Cash
	Kaiser Steel reclaims its oil which is treated and then reused.

Years ago, (the former) Kaiser Steel, Fontana, California, bought a newly invented skimming system which used a tube to retrieve waste oil.

The skimmer, developed by Oil Skimmers, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, uses a floating collector tube. It adjusts to the level of the water and moves slowly over and around debris, attracting only oil and no water.

As oil prices escalated, Kaiser began looking at the oil being reclaimed. The company determined that there was actually a lot that could be done with the recovered oil. Five years after installing the first Oil Skimmers' unit, the steel maker purchased additional units and the amount of salvaged oil grew.

Today, Kaiser Steel is making an effort to recover all its lubricating oil. The company currently reclaims approximately 20,000 gallons of high grade lubricating oil a month. Half of the oil is treated and reused within the mill.

The remaining 10,000 gallons are sold to refiners for treatment and resale. This translates into substantial cost savings. Additional benefits are less downtime for maintenance on plugged-up nozzles, pipes, heat exchangers and filters and an improved product free of stains and marks.

Once oil gets into the wastewater recovery system, it is carried to a scale pit and floats to the surface. The oil tends to adhere to the scale in the water forming an extremely abrasive compound. This compound is harmful to pumps and requires substantial maintenance for any equipment handling the oil.

The wearing parts that contact the oil on the Oil Skimmers' unit, however, are fabricated of a special diamonite ceramic made with Alcoa® Alumina to withstand this abrasion.

"I have five units in constant operation in the rolling mills area and they recover approximately 20,000 gallons of oil a month. There are probably a dozen units, however, within the plant confines," say Ernie Tudor, lubrication specialist, rolling mills maintenance division at Kaiser.

"The surface oil is lifted 42 ft. out of the pits. We then clean it up and use the treated oil in our gear boxes and mill table operations. We currently have these recovery systems working in our hot strip mill and plate mill."

The skimmer runs unattended 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has a high pickup capacity and virtually no moisture is carried along with the oil.

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