Proper Management of Waste Oil: A Guide for Small Businesses
When you start a small or medium enterprise, one of your top priorities is to manage resources efficiently. You may not have the luxury of investing in sophisticated waste oil processing equipment. However, you can use simplified machines and processes to keep your waste oil from degrading the environment. The secret lies in learning and understanding the process that goes into handling the waste oil and transforming it into usable or harmless forms. If you just started in the manufacturing and processing field, here is some useful information that will improve your insight:
Start with Proper Storage
Proper storage of waste oil from manufacturing and processing facilities is essential for combating pollution. If the oil finds its way into the soil or waterways, it pollutes these natural resources and affects productivity. Usually, the first step is to drain the oil into a pan that can hold more than the capacity of your machine's crankcases. This ensures that the oil doesn't overflow during drainage. The oil should flow out until the oil drops become slow and intermittent. Beware when handling oil from hot engines. It carries the risk of burns and injury. You are better off draining oil after running your machines and allowing them to cool off.
Secondly, transfer your used oil into leak-proof containers with sealed lids. Do not overfill the containers and refrain from mixing the used oil with bleach, paint and pesticides.
Recycling Your Used Oil
Small businesses can use simple oil recycling machines that will involve the following necessary steps:
- Removing water from the waste oil – the collected waste oil goes into a refining pot where you heat it to about eighty degrees Celsius. Allow the oil to stay still for about a day before heating to slightly over one hundred degrees. This evaporates the water content in the used oil.
- Acid pickling – the next step is acid pickling. Here, you add concentrated sulphuric acid to the waste oil while stirring for about half an hour. Let the mixture stand still for half a day before draining the acid.
- Neutralisation (alkali washing) – heat the used oil mixture to about eighty degrees, then add soda ash. Keep the mixture agitated, then let it stand still for a while. Test the pH of the mixture to ensure that it neutral before draining the slag left by the soda ash.
- Adsorption and filtration – the last step is to heat the used oil mixture while keeping it agitated. Allow it to stand for about an hour before filtering for oil that you can reuse.
If you have more questions, you can reach out to a local waste oil disposal service.
