Alfa Laval Industrial Centrifuge Systems

Alfa Laval centrifuges separate tramp oil and fine sediment from water-based machining coolants. These are flow-through disc stack centrifuges for continuous separation of industrial coolants.

A 3-phase centrifuge is specially configured as a machining coolant centrifuge. These centrifuges extend the usable life of water-soluble cutting fluids and synthetic coolants.

The liquid-liquid separation feature separates the tramp oil from the coolant. The liquid-solid separation effect removes the fine metal particles as disposable sludge.

Alfa Laval disc stack centrifuges separate fine metal particles from cutting oil. These centrifuges generate a very high centrifugal force. This g-force allows them to clean the oil to a high degree.

When installed in a kidney-loop, the centrifuge keeps the contaminant at a low level in the cutting oil reservoir. Dolphin Centrifuge has supplied small and large-scale centrifuges to manufacturers across the automotive and metalworking industries.

Wire drawing is a metalworking process to reduce the cross-section of the wire. Manufacturers pull the wire through a series of dies with reduced hole sizes. Lubricating oil reduces the process friction.

Metal, rust, and scale particles contaminate the lubricant in the drawing process. Filters are not practical in such applications due to the small size of particles.

An Alfa Laval centrifuge with a self-cleaning bowl purifies the lubricant oil. It cleans the oil by removing metal particles down to 0.5µ size. The centrifuge skid shown is a turnkey module manufactured by Dolphin Centrifuge to purify draw oil for an aluminum wire manufacturer.

Quenching oil has inherent heat-treating properties — hardening ability, heat resistance, thermal stability. Contamination causes these properties to degrade over time, leading to product quality issues and replenishment of costly quenching oil.

Alfa Laval self-cleaning clarifier centrifuges separate the solid contaminants from quenching oil. These centrifuges also remove R&O and coarse resin particles, allowing the reuse of the quenching oil. This recycling process extends the usable life of heat-treating oils.

Dolphin Centrifuge designed and manufactured the Alfa Laval centrifuge module shown above. A heat treatment supplier in the Midwest uses this system to reclaim their quench oil.

Sludge often contaminates industrial and municipal wastewater. Oil or hydrocarbon is present as the third phase in some cases. Sludge thickening is the concentration of sludge from large volumes of wastewater. This type of separation is not an application for filters or other static media separation technology.

A decanter centrifuge is a heavy-duty mechanical separator using high centrifugal force. It is efficient for sludge thickening at an industrial scale. As an extra advantage, it does not need labor involvement. It is the separation device of choice for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment.

Dolphin Centrifuge manufactures complete dewatering systems. This system is an Alfa Laval NX 314 Decanter package with a clean water tank and feed pump. With a 4,000 RPM bowl speed, this decanter processes 40 GPM of wastewater with up to 40% sludge.

WVO heating, decanting, and filtration are costly and labor-intensive, especially for large-scale processing of WVO and similar used oils.

Industrial centrifuges are ideal for continuously separating water and sludge from WVO. WVO could be in the form of grease trap waste, yellow grease, used cooking oil, etc. Alfa Laval disc stack centrifuges are often used for separating solids and water from WVO.

The Alfa Laval self-cleaning 3-phase centrifuge system shown processes WVO at 3–5 GPM at 180°F. Read our blog about large-scale WVO processing with an industrial centrifuge.

Algae cell harvesting requires processing a large volume of water to concentrate small amounts of microscopic algae cells. This is a challenging application for any separation process, especially those using media such as filters or presses.

Alfa Laval centrifuges are efficient at commercial-scale harvesting. Disc stack centrifuges generate upwards of 7,000 Gs — enough to separate the algae cells from water at up to 150 GPM. Typically these are stainless steel centrifuges with all wetted parts made of 316L stainless steel.

Dolphin Centrifuge supplied Alfa Laval disc stack centrifuges for algae harvesting at a fisheries plant in Thailand for nutritious fish larvae feed.

The chemical reaction produces biodiesel and glycerol. Gravity settling is a time-consuming process that also requires extra storage capacity. Alfa Laval centrifuges are a fast and cost-effective way to separate the glycerin from biodiesel.

Dolphin-modified Alfa Laval centrifuges produce ASTM-spec biodiesel without the need for further processing. The system shown is a Teflon-coated biodiesel centrifuge system manufactured for a domestic producer with VITON elastomers and explosion-proof components.