Environmental Spillage Recovery System

Autoclude, based in South Essex, are ISO 9001:2000 quality approved designers and manufacturers of peristaltic pumps with a wide range of OEM and cased pumps to suit industrial, scientific and laboratory applications.

An area of specialisation is the supply of pumping solutions based around their standard product range, but with a complete system designed to suit the end user's specific requirement.

Autoclude were approached by an environmental engineering company who had to recover diesel fuel which had leaked from storage tanks and spread over a wide area. To limit the environmental damage and recover the diesel fuel a number of bore holes were sunk around the contaminated area where a mixture of water and diesel fuel could drain into.

In total six bore holes were sunk, each contained a specially designed floating unit which housed the end of a suction tube which was then routed to a central point where all six tubes were connected via a series of pumps so that the fuel oil floating on top of the water in the bore holes could be pumped into a holding tank for disposal.

Obviously it would take some time to drain the site and it would not be possible for personnel to be present. Also the pumps sometimes would be pumping a mixture of diesel oil and water, or possibly even running dry. It was therefore decided that the pumps should be controlled by asymmetric timers where maybe a 10-15 minute ON time on an hourly basis would prove adequate. Due to the high demand on the suction side of the pumps, given the depth of the bore holes and the distance or horizontal tubing run, Autoclude chose to use their M3000 peristaltic pump with a special Prothane II tubing which gave chemical compatibility with the diesel fuel whilst providing better tube life than the alternative and more expensive fluoroelastomer tubing.

A system was devised whereby three IP55 enclosures, each housing two M3000 pumps along with independent timer control, were mounted on a rigid framework, all of which was housed within a wooden structure. Should a tube fail, then it was not acceptable to leak liquid back into the ground, therefore a drip tray fitted with a float switch was mounted beneath the pumps. This float switch, along with a level switch mounted within the holding tank, would stop all six pumps when activated.

The described system runs unattended for a considerable period of time and when the task is complete the equipment will be moved to another site as and when required.

Autoclude are always available to advise upon pumping applications and with their wide product range covering flow rates up to 23L/minute, and with IP55 enclosures, may be able to provide solutions to problems being faced by other companies within the environmental engineering sector.