How do I remove the oil from a vortex type oil water seperator?

Question

I am a student looking to build an oil water separator for a project, and am thinking I will use the vortex design, but I have a question. How do you get the oil out of it? I understand that the water will go to outside and create a cone, and that the water will thus naturally go down bottom hole while oil will go to center. But how do you remove the oil? Will it simply spill out of cone? Or do I have to put something there to suck it out? And how do I prevent the last of the oil from going down bottom hole when water flow stops? Your help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

The separated oil is removed through an orifice located in the inlet end and the treated water is discharged through the opposite end. There should be pressure in the cyclone to drive both water removal from the base and oil removal from the top. The pressure of the oil will increase the more oil there is in the cyclone nevertheless the water outlet and the oil outlet orifice size will need to be sized carefully for the desired inlet flow, pressure and possible oil concentrations. For safety reasons the cyclone should be able to withstand the maximum pressure the feed system can generate. This type of equipment is designed for continuous operation and the only solution I can think of to the problem of recovering oil when the oily water flow ceases is to switch (without interrupting flow) to clean water to flush the oil out.