Air Strip Technology
Transformer Oil Recycling
Cutting Oil Filtration and Recycling
Quench Oil

Air Strip Technology Now Available on COMO Oil Recycling Systems

The addition of Air Strip technology moves COMO Oil Recycling Systems ahead of vacuum oil purifiers in cost effectiveness and energy efficiency. COMO Oil Recycling Systems now offer water removal rates and dryness levels equivalent to vacuum systems with lower costs, complexity, and energy usage. Water removal rates are greater than one gallon per hour and final dryness levels of less than 40 ppm water are easily achieved. The addition of air stripping technology to our re-cycling systems makes it possible to economically dry oils that tend to retain emulsified water.

What is Air Stripping?
Air stripping is a "mass transfer" operation using dry air as a conveyor belt to remove water from oil. The oil is heated to 150 degrees Fahrenheit or more and finely dispersed air is injected. The air is immediately heated to the temperature of the oil, and in so doing, its "relative humidity" drops to the point where it is able to absorb up to its own weight or more in water. The higher the temperature of the oil, the greater the amount of water the air can remove. The rate of water removal with air stripping is determined by the temperature of the oil and the amount of air flow. 5 cfm of air with an oil temperature 160 degrees will remove one gallon of water per hour. Other volatile contaminants are also removed by this process.

How does Air Stripping compare with Vacuum purifying?
Oil temperatures are about the same in both processes. Oil oxidation is generally not a factor at these temperatures given the short exposure times involved. COMO's Air Strip systems are built on the foundation of our Oil Recycling Systems which all feature an integral oil reservoir. Using this oil reservoir in-stead of attempting to dry the oil in place results in such large energy savings that operation may be possible where it would be impossible to operate a vacuum system.

With Vacuum Purifiers, the oil is drawn from the sump through a heater, passes through the vacuum chamber, and is discharged back to the sump still hot. If the sump is large, most of the heat added to the oil is lost in the reservoir. Most vacuum systems are equipped with heaters that are not capable of raising the oil temperature more than 50 degrees per pass. If the heat loss in the sump is excessive, the oil temperature will never reach the required 150 degrees. The energy required to raise a 5 g.p.m. flow of oil from an ambient temperature of 70 degrees to the minimum required temperature of 150 degrees in one pass is in excess of 21 kilowatts (72,000 btu). At many locations, this amount of electrical power is not available. In contrast, COMO's Model "2000" Air Strip Recycling System can handle 100 gallon batches of oil with only 6 kilowatt heaters, which require only 25 amps at 240 volts single phase or 14.5 amps at 240 volts 3 phase. The amperage requirements at 480 volts will be half these numbers.

Compare energy requirements, initial cost, simplicity, or quality of final product. COMO Air Strip Recycling Systems come out on top.