Treatment of Oily Wastewater from Machining: Technical Breakthroughs and Application Value of Horizontal Oil-Water Separators

In machining operations, processes such as lathe work, equipment maintenance, and parts cleaning frequently generate oily wastewater containing a mixture of machine oils, engine oils, lubricants, and cutting fluids. Direct discharge of such wastewater not only pollutes the environment and violates environmental regulations but also results in the waste of valuable oil resources. Traditional oil removal methods often handle only large oil droplets and struggle to achieve deep oil removal, failing to meet increasingly stringent environmental discharge standards. The Brator horizontal oil-water separator offers a solution to this industry challenge.

Rather than a simple combination of isolated technologies, this equipment integrates multiple advanced oil removal technologies—including cyclone separators, coarse-grained stainless steel coalescers, polymer coalescers, and corrugated plate coalescers—to form a comprehensive deep oil removal system. Built upon mature industry technologies and backed by the expertise of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and prominent academic teams, the system incorporates proprietary coatings and patented designs. This approach fundamentally overcomes the limitations of traditional equipment—which typically removes large droplets but misses smaller ones—thereby endowing the unit with exceptional deep oil removal capabilities.

Although oily wastewater from machining often exhibits distinct oil layering, the presence of fine oil droplets smaller than 20–30 microns poses a critical challenge in controlling total oil content and meeting environmental standards. Conventional methods such as bubble separation and filtration are effective only for large droplets and have little impact on fine ones. In contrast, the Brator horizontal oil-water separator employs a synergistic multi-technology approach: a cyclone separator provides initial treatment to rapidly separate free  oil and large droplets, followed by various coalescers that aggregate fine droplets into larger globules, ensuring complete separation and achieving thorough purification. Its core advantages are perfectly aligned with the needs of machining plants: it offers exceptionally high oil-removal efficiency, capable of reducing the total oil content in oily wastewater from 1,000 ppm to below 50 ppm or even 20 ppm (actual post-treatment levels depend on influent quality), ensuring easy compliance with standards. It features a high degree of automation and supports continuous operation, thereby saving labor costs. Backed by significant patented technology, the equipment excels in stability and durability. Its compact structure and small footprint make it ideal for the limited space available in workshops. The enclosed design prevents secondary pollution, and the process requires no chemical additives, making it both environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

Furthermore, the equipment boasts excellent resistance to acids and alkalis and adapts well to various environments, making it suitable for oily wastewater from diverse machining processes. It can handle oil droplets larger than 10 μm; when equipped with demulsification filter cartridges, it can capture tiny droplets as small as 0.1 μm, achieving deep oil removal across all application scenarios.

As a specialized, high-tech enterprise in the oil-removal sector, Brator has long focused on oily wastewater treatment. Its horizontal oil-water separator not only ensures efficient separation but also establishes an integrated "oil-water-sludge" resource recovery system. The equipment continuously discharges separated oil and sludge for classified collection and processing; this recovers oil to utilize its residual value while minimizing oily sludge generation and reducing the load on downstream water treatment processes. This dual benefit of environmental protection and energy conservation supports the green transformation of the machining industry and contributes significantly to national environmental protection efforts.