Regeneration is the restoration of oil to virgin oil specifications or even better. Historically, Fullers earth as media has been used to reduce the acidity on a one-time batch basis. FWL’s new regeneration system has a reactivation process wherein the media can be re-used several hundred times before being recharged with new media.

Used, contaminated oil is drawn into the regeneration system by means of an inlet pump. The contaminated oil passes through a coarse mesh strainer that removes solid contamination to below 150 microns. The oil is heated, typically by low watt-density oil heaters which reduces the oil viscosity and allows for first stage filtering at reduced differential pressures. At this stage the oil is typically filtered to 10 microns. The oil is then fed to the regeneration columns that rely on an adsorbent principle to restore Acidity, Interfacial Tension, Colour, Resistivity and other parameters close to new oil conditions.

The oil is then fed into a vacuum vessel where residual water, entrapped gases and air are extracted by a vacuum pump system and exhausted. The newly reclaimed oil is pumped out of the vacuum vessel and passed through a fine filter that typically reduces particle contamination to less than 1 micron. Depending on circumstances and initial oil parameters, the oil may need to cycle through this procedure again.
Upon completion of this process, the media is reactivated and can be re-used. Typically, the reactivation process can be performed between 300 to 500 times before the yield is low enough to warrant replacement of the media. Our optimized regeneration systems utilize dual banks of columns that allow for continuous operation of the system by regenerating oil in one bank while the other bank is reactivating the media.