Dehydration of emulsified lubricating oil by three fields: swirl centrifugal field, pulse electric field and vacuum temperature field

Abstract

Lubricating oil can be easily polluted by water and emulsified, thereby negatively affecting the lubricating property. Meanwhile, wasted lubricating oil, a complex composition, presents high water content and exists with emulsion. A single technological method is difficult to be satisfied for efficient demulsification and dehydration of emulsified lubricating oil. In this paper, it is proposed that the swirl centrifugal field made by hydrocyclone, pulse electric field, and vacuum temperature field are coupled to achieve the oil’s dehydration. Based on the theories, it is reasonable to use three fields for oil’s demulsification. In the experiment of three-field dehydrating, the demulsification device is divided into two parts, namely, the coupled unit of pulse electric field and hydrocyclone, and the vacuum heating unit. The structure and size of the device were optimized through numerical simulation. With two modes of single field and three-field, the experiments were carried out. Results indicated that the use of three-field was more energy efficient and faster compared with the traditional vacuum heating method only.