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US 5,294,061 AGranted
Method of reducing the oil content of cuttings and apparatus for the application of said method
AssigneeSCS Environmental B.V.
InventorTom van Dijk
Life of this patent
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AssigneeSCS Environmental B.V.
InventorTom van Dijk
Estimating the term…
A method of reducing the oil content of cuttings, in which the cuttings are introduced into a drum-shaped space, where an elevated temperature is predominant and subjected to a hammering treatment in that space and the drum-shaped space is permanently heated from without so that during the performance of the hammering treatment the temperature in the interior is maintained in the vicinity of, but below, the cracking temperature of the oil in the cuttings to be treated, while further the pressure in the spaces is maintained at a value of at least 0.3 bar gauge. An apparatus for the application of such a method comprises a hammer mill and a dust cyclone, the hammer mill comprising a drum-shaped body, a rotary shaft passed through a side wall of the drum and extending axially through the drum, which shaft can be connected to a motor outside the drum, onto which rotary shaft hammers are mounted which extend into a direction substantially transverse to the shaft reaching up to the vicinity of the inner wall of the drum, the drum further comprises an inlet for feeding cuttings to the drum and outlets for discharging the mist formed in the apparatus in operation and the purified cuttings respectively, the outlet for the mist being connected to the dust cyclone and a heating system being provided around the drum for continuously supplying heat to the drum wall and maintaining it at a high temperature.
In a method of reducing oil content of cuttings which have been removed from drilling mud by the steps of subjecting said cuttings to hammering treatment in a drum-shaped space wherein heat produced by said hammering treatment generates an autologous operating temperature sufficient to substantially convert oil and water present in said cuttings to mist and vapor for removal from said drum-shaped space and removing said cuttings from said space in substantially dry form, the improvement comprising the steps of:
An apparatus including a hammer mill and a dust cyclone for reducing oil content of cuttings which have been removed from a drilling mud, the hammer mill comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.