High capacity oil recuperator for de-pollution in rough waters

Claim 1

A high capacity oil slick recuperator for use in rough waters, comprising: a stator having an inlet, a rotor rotatable inside said stator and provided with vanes, which rotor sucks in polluted water perpendicularly to its axis of rotation, wherein the stator-rotor assembly is adapted to be entirely submerged and wherein the configuration of the stator generates and maintains, by interaction between stator and rotor, a stream which induces a vortex stabilized in all azimuths on the periphery of the rotor and which is not associated with the general flow of the water stream, the axis of said vortex being parallel to the axis of the rotor and its intensity being dependent on the speed of rotation of the rotor; and wherein the oil slick on the water surface is carried as far as the vortex by the water stream being guided in submersion along a wall extending forward from the stator inlet and intercepting the water surface, and wherein the oil, which is less dense than the water, is caught into said vortex wherefrom it is sucked up as it enters it, via pumping means, towards a storage, the axis of the rotor being substantially horizontal, the said rotor being constituted by a grid of identical vanes arranged in cylindrical form at its periphery and in parallel to its axis of rotation, the upper inside wall profile of the stator being provided close to the periphery of the rotor with a cuspidal edge parallel to the vanes of the rotor and creating with the latter a small gap, the said cuspidal edge ensuring the separation between the incoming and outgoing water streams; the profile of said wall downstream of the said edge being substantially akin to the flow boundary line of said induced vortex, the said profile forming a crook which localizes said vortex; the oil pumping means being located in the vortex and constituted by a parietal intake provided in a concave nose-piece of the crook of the stator and which communicates with an induction pipe of a pump which transfers recuperated oil to the storage.