At A Glance:
- Location : Newcastle Upon Tyne
- Client: Newcastle International Airport
Products Supplied:
- Supplied in 2000 and operational ever since!
- Takes the complete runoff from the firewater training ground as seen in the pictures.
- Subjected to very high loads of silts and oils due to the nature of the fire training exercises undertaken on a regular basis.
- Large separate containment tank allows for less frequent maintenance of the oil separator.
- 2 Chamber design is essential in this scenario to ensure the very high oil and silt loads are kept away from the coalescer units.
- The Econoskim system is essential in high oil load scenarios to ensure that the oil separator can continue to function as best as possible.
Fire training sessions, using aviation fuel or similar, result in large quantities of unburnt fuel. A typical training session may use 200 litres of fuel with 50% unburnt reaching the surface water drain.
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Standard separators cannot cope with this loading over a period and will require frequent emptying at high cost with the risk that discharge will be outside consent levels.
The SPEL Puraceptor® Class 1 two chamber separator and the Automatic Econoskim® system skims pollutants from the first chamber directly into a SPEL containment tank installed above or below ground.
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The system removes the fuel for reuse (SPEL oil transfer system) or sale, maintains the SPEL Puraceptor® separator at peak performance and maintains discharge consent levels.
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The effect of training or front-line fire-fighting foams on run-off containing hydrocarbons depends on their type. Synthetic based foams have caused problems with the operation of separators but the protein based foams, now commonly used, do not break-up hydrocarbons but the molecules repel hydrocarbons allowing them to separate out in separators. Research at the Moreton-in-Marsh Fire Training School confirms protein based foams cause no problems with separators.