For hazardous liquid disposal contractors, optimum operation of evaporators can be a decisive factor in achieving bottom-line profitability of their operations.

LOFT is recognized as a leading manufacturer of evaporators for disposal contractors employing a wide variety of equipment including our largest evaporator systems. Constantly seeking to improve competitive advantages for our customers, we strive to achieve ever-lower water contents in the concentrates produced. After comparing with competition products on many occasions, our customers confirm that the LOFT DESTIMAT® LE provides by far highest effluent concentrations. We still did not see this as a reason to rest on our laurels.

Our patented FCH (Final Concentrator Hybrid) concentrator system and the new FCH-C concentrator for oil emulsions and glycol-polluted wastewaters are recent highlights again affirming our leadership in this sector.

The FCH concentrator is used as a second concentrating step downstream of a LOFT DESTIMAT® LE evaporator. The FCH operates without need for pumps or electric heating of any kind. All energy and incoming wastewater for operation of the FCH are provided from the DESTIMAT®LE. Due to the post-concentration effected by the FCH, the DESTIMAT® LE need not be operated to its full concentrating capability. The process configuration allows precipitation and settlement of any crystallized salts formed in the semi-finished concentrate, the aqueous phase is then concentrated further in the FCH unit.

FCH concentrators provide users a variety of benefits:

• Reduction of concentrate volume and therefore reduction of disposal costs
• Even higher operational reliability and higher effective capacity (=throughput) of the DESTIMAT® LE as it is operated below its full concentration capability
• No additional energy consumption and
• Short payback times for the purchase price invested.

Challenges of different kinds are posed for us by oil emulsions and glycol-polluted wastewaters. The target here is to process the concentrate in a manner permitting treatment and reuse or thermal utilization, i.e. as fuel.

In spite of the various optimized features of the LOFT DESTIMAT® LE, when used to process oil emulsions it normally cannot achieve concentrate oil contents greater than 60 % as measured by the Karl Fischer procedure. The reason for this is that MVC evaporators are normally limited in their attainable vacuum to roughly -550 mbar.

Our development work in this sector resulted in the FCH-C, a patented concentrator which, although not operating completely free of energy consumption, achieves vacuums in the range of -800 to -900 mbar. As a result, when used in conjunction with a MVC evaporator e.g. for treatment of coolant/lubricant emulsions, the FCH-C attains concentrate water contents lower than 20 % (as measured by the Karl Fischer procedure), a concentration level which prior to the FCH-C was previously unattainable.

This degree of concentration has been realized to date only by special systems requiring enormous energy input. In contrast, the LOFT FCH-C system requires an energy input of approx. 50-100 kWh per m³ of semi-finished concentrate processed.

Our sales team will be happy to provide further information on the possibilities in your specific application.