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Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 104, 23 July 1927, Page 2

OIL SEPARATOR. —Oil-separating barges are coming to be quite important craft. The Xanthus, which Messrs. Campbell Laird and Co. launched in May at Birkenhead for Messrs. Alfred Holt and Co., of Liverpool, is far removed from the small vessels which were originally adapted for the purpose of separating the oil and water “byproducts” of oil-burning vessels so that harbours and estuaries might not be polluted. She is 102 ft Gin in length, 22ft Gin in moulded breadth, and 10ft in moulded depth; of the single, raised quarter-deck type, with funnel and one mast. The oil is clarified by passing The impure oil is then pumped from the vessel concerned through hoses through a succession of settling tanks, joined to a receiving connection on the deck of the barge, and then on to perforated baffle plates in the receiving tank. These plates effect a preliminary separation of the oil and water particles, and the latter sink to the bottom of the tank. The latter is then pumped out through suction pipes by the oil transfer pump, and the oil is* discharged through pipe lines on to baffle plates in other settling tanks. This operation is repeated, and the oil, being then purified, is dicharged by the pump to hose connections on deck, for return to the bunkers of the vessel from which it came. The extracted water, being free from oil, is discharged >int© the &c«u