SKF install oil regeneration plant in Spain
Company receives grant from European Commission for new plant to regenerate industrial oils
SKF have been awarded a €1.62 million grant from the European Commission to install and operate a stand-alone processing plant for regeneration of industrial oils in Tudela, Spain.
The project will use the innovative Double Separation Technology (DST), developed by SKF RecondOil, to remove contaminants from used oils and return them to a cleaner, usable, and high-grade state. Compared with traditional linear use, regenerating oils in this way allows for a significant decrease in CO2 emissions.
The Tudela installation is the most recent addition to the growing number of DST systems in SKF’s manufacturing footprint. The technology is already in place at multiple sites in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Early results from the installations show that honing oil and filter consumption has decreased significantly, and product quality has improved because of the clean oil.
‘With this technology we can achieve unprecedented levels of oil cleanliness that enable repeated reuse of oil in the same application. Our service is a technological breakthrough, targeting the implementation of the patented technology at significant commercial scale,’ said Carl Philip Fredborg, team leader for deployment and after-sales at SKF RecondOil.
DST combines chemical and mechanical separation processes. In the first step, a specialized chemical composition, called a booster, is added to the oil. The booster attracts dirt within the oil – all the way down to nano-sized particles – while leaving essential oil additives intact. In the second step, all the dirt is separated from the oil, leaving a clean oil that can be continually regenerated.
The project allows for circular recovery and reuse of oils that typically would have reached the end of their life and required disposal, which typically involves waste incineration. However, since DST allows removal of almost all impurities, the oil can instead be returned to use.
SKF say implementation of DST has the potential to decrease the need to produce fossil-based virgin oil and lower the consumption of fossil fuels and the emissions associated with the production, transportation, and disposal of the replaced virgin oil.
Expectations are that up to 2.5 million litres of used oil can be treated in the new processing plant annually. At full capacity this means the new processing plant will help avoid more than 15,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions during its first 10 years of operation (compared with the same amount of virgin oil being produced, used, and disposed of).
According to SKF, their RecondOil solution can be used beyond the industrial oil sector in almost all manufacturing industries, including mining, mineral processing, and cement production.
The Tudela installation is currently nearing completion and SKF expect to start servicing customers from the new processing plant early in the second quarter of 2022.
