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Dear forum member,

we just purchasing vacuum dehydration Unit (VDU), to reduce the reduce the concentration of water in our contaminated lube oil tank.

It was running very well to remove water.
and then i stop it.
when we want to start again, now the problem come.
The VDU is not removing water.
by inspecting the vacuum reading, and oil temp, We are sure that we running it above the boiling point of water (-26 inHg / 60 C)

I call vendor,
he told me that the coalescer (inside of the vacuum chamber) is dirty. I need to clean it.
Hohoho,... i just use it for a week only.

do i need to clean the coalescer always on the time of start up?
he said "yes"

Do you face the same problem with your VDU?

regards,


Nurudin
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Hi Nurdin, what is the model of the unit so we can check how that unit works, one would think if the coalescer becomes easily contaminated there would be a quick way of cleaning or unless there is something like air or a lot of water in your lubricant that foams up & gels the coalescer preventing it from working, what did you find in the unit when you cleaned??,
Thanks Rob S
Instead of coalescer, the vendor call it as Disperser

The function is to stop the phase of liquid(oil / water), and passing the phase of gas (water vapor)

When We clean it, we found only oil which is trapped in the coalescer / disperser.
No gell, or sludge was observed.
To clean, we just immeresed it into a solvent (degreaser agent), and then blow it with air.

Install it again, and it work normally.

but I don't like the frequent practice to clean, prior to start up.

for the model, i can't share here.
Hi Nurdin, that sounds like the VDU is pulling a fraction of the lubricant off as a vapour as one would expect if water was present there would an emulsion/sludge or gel in the coalescer/disperser. Is water still present in the reservoir?
No chance of a lighter hydrocarbon fraction gaining access to the lube system?
Regards
Rob S
Yes, you're right rttech
I found also small amount of oil at the water collection tank. (that means the oil become vaporized also)
No any other hydrocarbon which come to the lube oil system. It was lube oil only.

anyhow, VDU is good. we able to reducing water content upto 70 ppm. But you need to do some special cleaning as what i explain above.

Centrifuge is also good, but for our case, we only able to reducing water content upto 300 ppm only.


Regards,
Hi Nurudin, a centrifuge is relying upon the difference in density for removal as you no doubt understand, water is 1 in density and oil is 8.5-9.5 and once the water commences to emulsify the two may become (I have no test data) similar in density and then separation can't occur, I do know from testing that an oil driven centrifuge can't remove carbon from Heat Transfer Fluid because of lack of G force but a motor driven centrifuge will remove carbon but I guess you would have been using a motor driven centrifuge, Regards Rob S
Hi Nurudin,

I think the important lesson here is to ensure that we are aware of what maintenance is necessary to maintain a system prior to making a purchase. If systems are too complicated or require too much regular maintenance it is likely that maintenance staff simply won't make use of the technology.

One of the key benefits of the CJC filtration technology is that it is "plug and play". Usually the only maintenance that is required is annual filter changes.

Have a look at this case study that highlights the effective water removal performance:

https://drive.google.com/file/...Y2s/edit?usp=sharing

Water content went from over 1,600 ppm to 14 ppm in 24 hrs.
Perry, you're not suggesting that your unit can somehow defy physics and remove dissolved water from the fluid through absorption, are you? Clearly, there must have been other factors in play.

quote:
Originally posted by Perry Thiessen:
Hi Nurudin,

I think the important lesson here is to ensure that we are aware of what maintenance is necessary to maintain a system prior to making a purchase. If systems are too complicated or require too much regular maintenance it is likely that maintenance staff simply won't make use of the technology.

One of the key benefits of the CJC filtration technology is that it is "plug and play". Usually the only maintenance that is required is annual filter changes.

Have a look at this case study that highlights the effective water removal performance:

https://drive.google.com/file/...Y2s/edit?usp=sharing

Water content went from over 1,600 ppm to 14 ppm in 24 hrs.
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