Oil skimmers are pieces of equipment that remove oil floating on the surface of a fluid. In general, oil skimmers work because they are made of materials to which oil is more likely to stick than the fluid it is floating on. At the same time, the fluid has very little attraction to oil skimmers.

Oil skimmers are usually all that is necessary to remove oil from a liquid. In some cases, however, oil skimmers may be used to pre-treat a fluid. In this case, the oil skimmers remove as much of the oil as possible before more expensive and time-consuming measures are employed. Pre-treating the fluid with oil skimmers reduces the overall cost of cleaning the liquid.

There are two basic types of oil skimmers. One type is used to filter and remove oil, debris, and unwanted materials. The other type is used to recover or capture oil in a usable state. Typically, this second type of skimmer is used to clean up oil spills in factories, refineries, and bodies of Water. Applications for oil skimmers include in-plant pumps, tanks, and coolant systems as well as outdoor cooling and settling ponds. When selecting oil skimmers, important specifications to consider include capacity, removal or recovery rate, and total flow. When capacity is measured in gallons, flow is measured in gallons per minute (gpm) and the removal or recovery rate is expressed in gallons per hour (gph).

There are several different types of oil skimmers, though all designs depend on the laws of gravity and on surface tension in order to function.

Types

The six primary types of oil skimmers are belt, disk, drum or barrel style, mop, large tube or mini tube, and floating suction oil skimmers. Belt oil skimmers utilize a belt of stainless steel. This belt is lowered into the liquid that needs to be cleaned. The belt then passes through special wiper blades, which remove the oil from both sides of the liquid as it passes through. Disc oil skimmers use a disk that is rotated through the liquid. The oil is wiped off the liquid and placed into a special collection container within the skimmer. Disk oil skimmers are not a good choice for shallow liquids or for places where the liquid level fluctuates, because they are most effective when the entire disk is immersed.