Mobile waste oil cleaning apparatus

A compact, mobile waste oil cleaning apparatus comprising:

• a tractor trailer chassis including an elongated horizontal platform,
• an oil burner fired heater of cylindrical form fixed to said platform and having its axis vertical thereto,
• said heater comprising concentric inner and outer vertical metal sidewalls defining a central fire chamber internally of the inner wall and an annular oil flow chamber between said walls,
• helical strip means between said metal sidewalls and along the inside of said inner sidewall, respectively, defining helical heat exchange paths within said chambers along opposite surfaces of said inner sidewall from the bottom to the top thereof,
• a burner including a fire box opening up tangentially to said inner chamber at the bottom thereof for facilitating helical flow of the burner products of combustion along the inner surface of said inner sidewall,
• means for supplying a fuel and air mixture to said burner fire box for combustion therein such that the products of combustion flow along said inner helical path within said central chamber for exhaust through the top of said central chamber.
• means for pumping waste oil through said other helical path within said annular chamber,
• a vibrating screen type solids separator mounted on said platform to one side of said heater at a vertically raised position, means for feeding oil heated by said heater to said solids separator
• a multi-compartment oil/water separator tank mounted adjacent to said solids separator,
• means for feeding said heated waste oil free of solids from said solids separator to said oil/water separator,
• a plurality of vertical transverse walls within said oil/water separator tank dividing said separator tank into sealed side by side compartments, said transverse walls including weir openings of increasing depth at their upper ends in a direction away from the end of said oil/water separator tank adjacent said solids separator;
• whereby, water separates by gravity from said heated oil and accumulates sequentially within the bottom of the oil/water separator tank compartments, and separated, heated oil flows over the weir openings of said vertical oil/water separator tank transverse walls sequentially towards the most downstream compartment remote from the solids separator, and
• means for selectively removing accumulated water from the bottoms of all of said tank compartments and oil skimmmer means within said most downstream separator tank compartment at the level above the separated water to remove water free heated oil therefrom.