Dehydrator purifies oil faster

5th September 2014

By: Donna Slater

Features Deputy Editor and Chief Photographer

  

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Contaminated oil stored in a static hydraulic 2 000 ℓ tank was purified completely using wear control company Filter Focus’s vacuum dehydrator.

The oil was contaminated with 34% water after a cooler system failure at KwaZulu-Natal-based aluminium manufacturer Hulamin’s plant earlier this year.

On-site lubrication management pro- vider Engen FluidLink site manager Gustav Groenewald says water-contaminated oil promotes oxidation and can lead to failures in components, such as bearings and shaft journals, and to the jamming of mechanisms such as pilot valves, trip cylinders and hydraulic pistons.

“Maintaining the highest standards of oil purity is one of the most critical priorities when maintaining a hydraulic system.

“The vacuum dehydrator was highly effec-tive, having cleaned the hydraulic oils to ISO 4406 standards in three days, well ahead of any competitor products,” says Groenewald, adding that Filter Focus desiccant breathers proved to be cost effective and performed well in keeping all moisture from humidity and unwanted floating particles out.

The internationally recognised ISO 4406 cleanliness code quantifies particulate contamination levels per millilitre of fluid in three sizes: 4 μm, 6 μm and 14 μm. The code is also expressed using a number range, such as 19, 17 and 14, with each number representing a contaminant level code for the correlating particle size, and includes all particles of the specified size.

How It Works
Filter Focus COO Craig FitzGerald says the vacuum dehydrator is developed and manufactured in-house.

He says the vacuum dehydrator is fully automated, allowing for “one-touch automated operation”.

Wet or emulsified oil is drawn into the system under a vacuum in a laminar flow so that the contaminants are not disturbed and emulsification is not encouraged. The first chamber is a quiet zone that leads to a thermostat-controlled heater chamber; however, the oil never comes into contact with the heating elements to ensure the safety of the system. The oil then passes into the vacuum separator under low pressure and low humidity conditions.

FitzGerald states that the separator unit provides the ideal environment to evaporate water rapidly from oil.

He tells Engineering News that, as a result of the low pressure in the dehydrator unit, the fluid can reach boiling point at much lower temperatures, compared with boiling at atmospheric pressure.

There are several quiet zones throughout the system that shed some of the water prior to the dehydration process, thereby enabling the machine to work more efficiently.

Vapours and gases that have been steamed off then enter a condensation unit, where the vapour is returned to liquid form and stored in a water tank that is monitored by a float switch. When the tank is full, the switch activates a series of solenoid valves that shut off the rest of the system while maintaining pressure in the system. Water is then drained from the tank and the system automatically returns to operation.

After passing through the dehydrator unit, cleaner and drier oil is returned to the oil tank and, depending on the level of contamination, the process can be repeated several times to achieve the target dehydration and cleanli-ness levels.

Once the oil has reached the target level of dryness, a valve can be activated so that the drier oil can bypass the dehydrator unit. This will allow for the drier oil to flow through a special filter during a final pass to remove any other contaminants, ensuring that the oil is satisfactorily purified.

Groenewald believes the vacuum dehyd-rator will provide Hulamin and FluidLink with cleaner oil in the future. “There is no doubt that Filter Focus will be able to assist in keeping oils to an ISO 4406 standard in all our hydraulic applications.”

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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