Research

MHD oil separation and recovery from oil-contaminated seawater

A new method for oil separation and recovery from oil-contaminated seawater based on electromagnetic force in an MHD flow train, the so-called magneto hydrodynamics (MHD) oil separation and recovery method was proposed and studied since 2002. In comparison with the conventional methods that use mechanical devices and dispersants, the MHD method has the advantages of being compact, facilitating the treatment of separated oil, having little negative effect on environment and. more effective for light oil with thin films and oil fine droplets suspending in seawater. The oil-contaminated seawater has two typical cases: stratified flow and dispersed flow. The MHD method for oil separation to both cases above were investigated analytically and experimentally..

An experiment model ship with an MHD floating oil recovery and separation device was designed, manufactured and tested. It was demonstrated successfully using lubricating oil. A joint experiment between IEECAS and FMSKU (Faculty of Maritime Sciences, Kobe University) has been carried out to demonstrate MHD separation for dispersed flow in 2006. The experimental results show that the separation ratio increases as current increasing at a constant magnetic field, particle diameter and flow rate. A perfect separation can be reached when the particle diameter is smaller, and a separation ratio of 99.45% has been reached in the experiment when the diameter is 0.5mm at the magnetic field of 10T.

Currently, further analytical and experimental investigation on the flow characteristics with multiphase and mixture of oil and seawater, as well as applications are carried out.