Evaporating Ultrasonic Waste Water

We have to collect our ultrasonic waste water, and send it out for recycling. Does anyone / you can PM me if necessary / use a drum heater to cook off waste water, and then collect whats left in the drum to recycle later?
Thank you,
Payson.

I evaporate the water out of my old coolant and any other oil contaminated water using a large flat tub behind my shop in the summer. The more surface area the better and draping a towel in it on slats really speeds up the rate of evaporation. I am too cheap to use a drum heater so I just use the sun.

I used to use a paint shop that had a nifty little sealed evaporator they used for solvents and paint thinners. It was about a 2' cube, and they really liked it. This was in LA, where AQMD rules are quite restrictive, and it was street legal, saved them a lot of money, and they were very happy with it. Cant remember the brand, though.

Ries said:

I used to use a paint shop that had a nifty little sealed evaporator they used for solvents and paint thinners. It was about a 2' cube, and they really liked it. This was in LA, where AQMD rules are quite restrictive, and it was street legal, saved them a lot of money, and they were very happy with it. Cant remember the brand, though.

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Commonly known as a solvent recycler. Very effective for this kind of thing.

Evaporation is a common way of reducing the volume of wastewater you will have to get rid of. I have worked at a shop that did this for the mop water and waste coolant.

The leftover sludge may or may not be considered hazardous waste depending on where you are and what you are washing in the ultrasonic cleaner. (The state I live in classifies waste oils and water as hazardous waste.)

It sounds like you are processing very small quantities. If all you have left over for sludge and oil fits in a paint can or a plastic pail, some cities offer haz waste disposal on certain days (DPW in my town does it a few times a year), and for a pretty small fee you can responsibly dispose of it.

In my opinion, what matters is that you aren't just dumping it down the sewer or into the ground behind your shop.

Ries said:

I used to use a paint shop that had a nifty little sealed evaporator they used for solvents and paint thinners. It was about a 2' cube, and they really liked it. This was in LA, where AQMD rules are quite restrictive, and it was street legal, saved them a lot of money, and they were very happy with it. Cant remember the brand, though.

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One model was from "finish engineering" in Erie, pa.

Not made anymore.

It might be ok to “burn off” with the waste water but definitely check with local regulators. Many cities have restrictions.

It might be worth calling Barton Solvents (BAR-SOL) and seeing what it would cost for them to come pump it. We used to boil our tramp coolant and mop water off, but the energy cost and PITA factor was actually costlier than having them come and suck the whole drum dry.

It's fairly clean water from the Sonicor Ultrasonic. Akin to jewelry work. A little silver and gold dust, with polishing compound.
Payson.

Flute Maker said:

It's fairly clean water from the Sonicor Ultrasonic. Akin to jewelry work. A little silver and gold dust, with polishing compound.
Payson.

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Evaporation dry it, or if you need a speedier process and don't want to spend 8K on a still, they sell water distillers on the jungle site.

dalmatiangirl61 said:

Evaporation dry it, or if you need a speedier process and don't want to spend 8K on a still, they sell water distillers on the jungle site.

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Are you talking about the ones made for water purification? Wouldn't cleaning the residue out of the tank be difficult or impossible after you ran it once or twice?

We skim several gallons a week off the top of our coolant tanks, collect in 55 gallon drums and pay to have it taken away by recyclers. Right now I have about 10 barrels of water soluble coolant/scum. Is there a reasonable easy way to evaporate or separate the water (probably 75 percent of the volume) so I have to dispose of much less volume? Looking on line, I don't see anything for this particular use.

Found this, but a bit pricey for what I would need.
https://www.equipmentmanufacturing.com/wastewater-evaporator-water-eater-home/wastewater-evaporator-water-eater-85e.html

Any oil or scum on the surface will almost stop evaporation so it needs to be removed. Another thought is to use a bubbler instead of heat.

If it is just oil floating on top the water below could be pumped or siphoned out from under the oil and then evaporated.
Of course the oil can be skimmed of but not easily if it is already in barrels.

RJT said:

We skim several gallons a week off the top of our coolant tanks, collect in 55 gallon drums and pay to have it taken away by recyclers. Right now I have about 10 barrels of water soluble coolant/scum. Is there a reasonable easy way to evaporate or separate the water (probably 75 percent of the volume) so I have to dispose of much less volume? Looking on line, I don't see anything for this particular use.

Found this, but a bit pricey for what I would need.
https://www.equipmentmanufacturing.com/wastewater-evaporator-water-eater-home/wastewater-evaporator-water-eater-85e.html

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I have seen "hot boxes" like that at the trade shows before, and I don't see how they are s'posed to work?
As you evap off the water, all of a sudden - you have a skim of oil floating on top, and now - the water is sealed off from evaporating.*

IDK if maybe you had it at boiling - if it would bubble up through the oil residue and continue to evap?
Prolly - for a bit anyhow ... but at some point the oil film would git too thick - no?
I can see those working for mop water maybe, but not old coolant.

What I have been dooing, is that I have a hot water based batch worsher. You know the type that you would put a transmission case in or whatnot? Used mostly for inhouse matters. Seldom run production parts through it.

So when the water in the worsher needs changed, I will always doo that when it is low on water anyhow of course. But if I have the time and whatnot, if I have some old coolant backed up, I might start dumping that in the worsher, and I also crank up the heat too.

You need to check on it frequently, but it will get that oil skim on it, and then it's time to run the skimmer. Skim off the oil, and it starts evap'ing again. Rinse and repeat. It works pretty good, but you're not going to be worshing any parts for a few days.... I have considered getting another worsher like it to have just for that porpoise. In the volumes that you are talking, that's what I would doo.

Of course you never get the last 10 gal or so evap'd, but you'll feed that in the next time aggin.

Then the oils that you skim off can be given to a neighbor for free to burn in his waste oil furnace.

There would still be some water drawn off by the skimmer, and I just let the bucket set for some time, and then run a belt skimmer to pull the oil off the top 1/2 of the bucket, and then pour two half buckets together and go aggin... It can be a process, and it can take some time, but it negates the haz mat fees!

Another thing that I have done - is employ a 55 gal drum, or even a tote. Once you come out of the worsher, you are pretty much oil and water, and they should separate if left alone. Dump it all in a tote or drum and leave it sit. Come back a few months later, and you can open the drain on the tote to let the [first layer] of water out, and then catch the next few buckets maybe.... But really - this is really a part of the process that your burner guy will likely take care of anyway.

I just had a drum of used cutting oil that came in from a chum. It had been setting outside for several months. And even tho the bungs were closed, they were not balled down tight-tight, and with all the rain that we were getting [up untill mid Aug] the water will seep in, and even push out the oil.

I was wanting to use that oil, and I found the water came out first. So I tipped my forks down to let the water swamp the bung, and then slowly poured off 10 gal water until I started getting some oil. Tipped the forks back so that the water ran to the back of the drum and poured off good oil. Once that was "empty", then I tipped it fwd again and let the last 5 gal of mixed, but mostly oil off. Rinse and repeat...


Or just call Safety Clean ...


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

LOTT said:

Are you talking about the ones made for water purification? Wouldn't cleaning the residue out of the tank be difficult or impossible after you ran it once or twice?

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His residue is silver, gold dust, and polishing compound, scrape it out and collect the dust, or just keep evaporating till its full and send the whole pot out for reclamation. If concentrated liquid sludge is the goal, and the amount of liquid coming out of the ultrasonic tank is always the same, it would be easy enough to time the first batch then put a timer on the distiller so it always leaves a liquid sludge.

Edit: The commercial distiller linked above is $8500, a 1 quart water distiller is $130, you could kill a lot of water distillers before ever getting close to cost of the commercial unit.

For ultrasonic water, I'm guessing that any oils had already been worshed off previously?
If so, one of those hot box type boilers would likely work fine.

As long as the contaminants in the solution are heavier that water, they will drop out of suspension as you boil off the water. That works well I'm sure.

But if what you have in suspension (oil/coolant) is lighter than water, as you boil off the water, when the remaining solution won't hold any more in suspension, then it floats out, and causes issues.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

dalmatiangirl61 said:

His residue is silver, gold dust, and polishing compound, scrape it out and collect the dust, or just keep evaporating till its full and send the whole pot out for reclamation. If concentrated liquid sludge is the goal, and the amount of liquid coming out of the ultrasonic tank is always the same, it would be easy enough to time the first batch then put a timer on the distiller so it always leaves a liquid sludge.

Edit: The commercial distiller linked above is $8500, a 1 quart water distiller is $130, you could kill a lot of water distillers before ever getting close to cost of the commercial unit.

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Makes sense, I wasn't thinking about how oil free the OP's parts would be.

Rob F. said:

If it is just oil floating on top the water below could be pumped or siphoned out from under the oil and then evaporated.
Of course the oil can be skimmed of but not easily if it is already in barrels.

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Yunno, along that line of thought, I will put scummy fluids like that in a drum. I was using a 15 gal drum.
I fill it up and let it sit a bit, and then I will run a belt skimmer off the top, and top it up aggin. And then I slip a pump down in the bottom, and I pump out the "water" from underneath.

I try not to let my skimmer belt dip down into the water, and I try not to pump any oil. If I doo, I may actually just pour it back in and doo the opposite tomorrow. (depending how anal you want to be on the subject)

That worked really good, for quite some time, until one day - the bottom rotted out of the barrel.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

You need a woodstove.....in the dead of winter when it's firing
with a full load of wood, splash some of the water in there.