Development of Water Wheel Type Oil Skimmer

수차형 유회수기의 개발

The ocean is now increasingly suffering from pollution mainly caused by oil spill accidents roil increasing marine transportation. It cause not only the deterioration of ocean resources but also critical damage on the ocean ecosystem. Present study is an experimental one for the development of the oil skimmer which can collect spilled-oil actively and effectively from the sea surface. As an effort of achieving it, a new type of water wheel attached nil skimmer was devised, based upon the concept of orifice. The shapes of the water wheel, blades and oil storing tank are found to be very important factors on the oil skimming performance through systematic experimental analysis. Real oil recovery test was also carried out in square tank using the oil skimmer with their optimal shapes. Quite satisfactory result are obtained from the test which showed 99% and 98% recovery rates for light oil and heavy oil in still water condition, respectively.