Seperating Oil from Dirt

I have roughly 1000lbs of carbide sludge. Its really just carbide grit and oil mixed together. Its been sitting afew years and now all the carbide has settled to the bottom of the 5gallon buckets they are in. Problem is to recycle them it needs to be dry. So the oil needs to be 90% gone. Now ive tried just pouring it off the top. But more just shows up in afew hours. So I need a way to seperate the oil from the carbide.

I am thinking about dumping the carbide out onto a small grid and putting a filter on the grid to hold the carbide up but let the oil drip threw. But this may take alot of time. I need to get this stuff ready in the next couple weeks.

So if you guys have any good ideas of how to do this please let me know.

Dilute the oil with distillate (kerosine, light diesel fuel) then filter it ? Just a thought.

Or maybe centrifuge (chipwringer)

Dick Z

I have a centrifuse. Actually have 4 of them. But that idea doesnt work well because when you take it out of the 5gallon buckets and put it in the centrifuse it all goes to one side and puts it off balance and that doesnt go well

BAJA filter? Series of finer screens to separate the non-fluid from the "fluid." Maybe make a slurry like DZASTR suggested then filter - http://images.google.com/images?q=Ba...=1&sa=N&tab=wi for some pics.

Suppose burning is is bad - smelly- idea and no good way to capture the smoke/soot/etc. Got a co-generation plant?
Interesting challenge - :cheers: Jim

Try an experiment with a small amount; put it in hot water, very hot such as near boiling point.

I expect that the water will separate the oil from the carbide dust and float the oil to the surface while the dust sinks. You may need to mix it vigorously for a while then let it stand and settle.

At least this is the way the crude oil is separated from the sand in the big tar sands oil recovery operation in Alberta.

Then your only problem is separating the oil from the water; which is not too difficult.

Buy a bolt of thick cotton cloth (maybe denim), Moisten the cloth with oil (no carbide dust). Place a barrel at a lower level than the container of sludge. Use the oil moistened cloth as a siphon to draw fluid from the upper container to the lower container. Just lay the cotton cloth on top of the carbide sludge, in the oil, and hang the other end to the bottom of the lower container. The capillary action will draw the oil up through the cloth over the rim of the container, and into the lower barrel. The cloth will not allow the carbide dust to pass. Go pull a couple of tabs and let gravity do the work for you!

Heat it up then centrifuge it. That's how I clean waste vegetable oil for use in my car.

Wade