HH62/2/LINLIT/21

Transcription

[Page] 20

escaping decomposition, is separated from
the crude oil by Separators, which allow
the oil to float and pass off above, and
the water to be drawn off from below.
This water is afterwards exhausted of its
ammonia by heat, and the ammonia is
recovered by sulphuric acid.

(4) Water used for condensing the oil vapours,
and which may either be a pure water
such as (1), or dirty water of the works
cooled in cooling ponds for the purpose.

(5) Water used for cooling the paraffin in the
candle moulds, in candle making.

(6) Water employed in dissolving the caustic
soda used in refining, and afterwards
separated from the oil.

(7) Water used for washing out the vitriol from
the vitriol tar, and afterwards separated
from the vitriol.

(8) Surface drainage water -
(a) From rain, leakages in plant, spilling of
fluids, etc.
(b) From refuse bings.

In a work where the water supply is plentiful,
perhaps the simplest and cheapest method of dis-
posing of the water which has been used in the
manufacturing processes, and of that derived from
the shale, both of which are highly impregnated with
various chemical products and tarry matters, is to let
it run into the nearest stream - of course polluting it.
This is practically how some of the works solve the
question of their liquid, if not solid refuse disposal.
At one work I visited, the whole of the water -
excepting a quantity pumped on to the spent shale

[Page] 21

bing for cooling - is filtered through an old refuse
bing, and falls into an adjoining burn. The Manager
informed me that there they have a plentiful water
supply, and that about 300,000 gallons of water pass
into the works daily. About three-fourths of this
quantity pass out, carrying with it the various
impurities.

In some works a portion of the dirty water is
passed to a pond, through which the truck loads of
how spent shale are drawn to be cooled; or, as at
Champfleurie, near Linlithgow (not in the Almond
district), an automatic arrangement may be put in
operation, whereby a quantity of dirty water falls
upon each hot shale truck on its passage to the bing.
In both of these ways the water is got rid of by rapid
evaporation. The former method is to be seen at
Addiewell, although here water from the separators
(restricted, however, as to degree of impurity) goes
out from the work, and ultimately reaches the
Almond.

In works of recent construction the whole of the
dirty water is used up, and almost nothing escapes
into the streams, except occasional surface drainage.
As examples of such works, we have Champfleurie
and Broxburn. In these works the tarry matters are
consumed as fuel, and the dirty water is partly
evaporated in slaking hot shale, and partly collected
to cooling ponds to be cooled down, and used over
and over again for the condensers. In none of the
works have I have seen any method of catching bing
drainage and outside surface drainage, and satisfac-
torily disposing of them. But it is to be noted that
works' surface drainage, in works collecting their
ordinary surface drainage to a dirty water tank,