Continuous In Situ Oil Recovery From Oil/Water Mixture with Natural Kapok Fiber and External Pumping

Abstract

An oil recovery system composed of an oil capture module packed kapok fibers and a vacuum pump was developed for continuous oil recovery from artificial oil/water (O/W) mixture. The mechanism of porous hydrophobic–oleophilic kapok fiber layer (KFL) for O/W separation was analyzed, and a physical model for continuous oil recovery process was established. The oil recovery performance, which was evaluated by oil recovery rate (ORR, %) and oil enrichment rate (OER, %), depended on turbulence intensity of O/W mixture, driving pressure, KFL porosity and thickness, initial oil content of O/W mixture, and oil viscosity. Owing to the well oil selectivity of kapok, the oil content of the permeate was above 95.0% when the initial oil content of the O/W mixture was between 6.0% and 8.0%. The system was capable of collecting low viscosity oil efficiently.