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PROTOTYPE MONITORING SYSTEM

BILGE OILY WATER AUTOMATIC
SEPARATOR ON MICROCONTROLLER
BASED VESSEL
Mas Ghofur Qowwamun Hakim1, Mohammad Abu Jami’in2
1
Marine Electrical Engineering Department, Politikenik Perkapalan Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya,
Indonesia

E-mail: masghofurqowwamunhakim@gmail.com

Received xxxxxx
Accepted for publication xxxxxx
Published xxxxxx

Abstract

Oil waste pollution will have impact in marine ecosystems. IMO (International Maritime Organization) provisions for waste
oil liquid must be less than 15 ppm. The purpose of this research is to design and manufacture a bilge oily water separator
monitoring system on ships for the separation of waste fluids and monitor the discharge level. The waste separation use servo
automatic separation. TDS sensor (Total Dissolve Solid) and LCD display as indicators for monitoring. Parameter aims to
determine and maintain the concentration of wastewater not exceeding 15 ppm. The automatic bilge oily water separator
monitoring system can work properly. The TDS sensor reading has an error percentage of 2.52%. The duration of the
separation process 1 liter for 2 minutes 58 seconds, the working capacity is 23.25 liters / hour and the effectiveness of the oil
separating process on the prototype that is made reaches up to 96%.

Keywords: Bilge Oily Water Separator, sensor TDS (Total Dissolve Solid), Mikrokontroller, Servo Valve

1. Introduction
Apart from being used as a means of transportation,
the Indonesian sea also has enormous marine resources
which are important for life. This is related to the increasing
number of ships, which will greatly affect the level of marine
pollution, due to oil waste being illegally dumped from ships,
efforts to develop marine damage control activities continue
to be carried out due to the increasing amount of pollution in
the sea. It is recorded in the investigation data of 12 ships in
2019 in the waters of Batam and Bintan that were caught,
because they dumped large-scale oil waste illegally [1]. This
type of pollution is often found on ships due to the
inadequate sewage system or oily bilge water.
IMO (International Maritime Organization) regulates
the requirements for the concentration of waste oil liquid to
be disposed of, which must be less than 15 ppm [2]. Every
ship must produce sewage or oily bilge water, especially in
the engine room, from leaks from fuel pipes or other
lubricants. Sewage or oily bilge water will eventually be
disposed the sea but must go through a process of separating
water and oil so that marine pollution does not occur as a
result of the disposal of this waste [3,4]. Therefore, a process
is needed so that the oil content in the water can be less than
15 ppm before being discharged into the sea. Along with the
development of the era of sophisticated technology, many
were created to overcome this problem, especially the control
and monitoring system of oily water separator [5,6,7].
Based on the above background, a tool is needed to
overcome these problems. In this research, a simple
automatic bilge oily water separator monitoring system was
designed and it is hoped that it can increase the water and oil

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separator as well as the water density level to prevent the 2. The Arduino microcontroller functions to run the oil-
illegal disposal of oil waste on ships and damage to the water separator system program. LDR digital signal
marine ecosystem. data to run the servo motor and TDS sensor
measurements will be processed to determine the value
2. Methodology of the water condition as the buzzer input then the data
This system design is displayed on the LCD.
describes the overall system 3. The servo motor functions to open the faucet as a filter
which includes hardware, for oil and water according to the LDR digital signal
mechanical devices and data received from the microcontroller.
software. The hardware used 4. LCD functions to display water condition parameters
in this system includes and informs that the screen is ready to be discarded
optical sensors (laser and and not ready to be thrown away.
LDR), Arduino Mega 2560 5. Buzzer functions as a sign that the water is not ready to
microcontroller, TDS sensor, be discharged.
LCD, servo motor, buzzer 6. The tank serves to accommodate the results of
and tank. The mechanical separating oil and water using a servo valve.
device designed is a medium
The water-oil separator system software is run using an
sized acrylic box prototype
Arduino microcontroller. The microcontroller accepts optical
that represents the system.
The software that is sensor input in the form of a digital signal. From this input,
implemented in the system is the data is processed to run the servo motor as opening and
in the form of optical sensor closing the faucet.
readings, monitoring of water Mechanical Design
quality readings and servo In this study, the system was tested on a prototype as a test.
motor control. The design of the acrylic tank that separates oil and water
and the placement of sensors and actuators is designed as
shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. Block Diagram System

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the water-oil
separator system. The optical sensor consists of a laser and
an LDR where the laser functions as a light source and an
LDR that receives the light. The digital signal data received
by the LDR sensor is sent to the Arduino microcontroller as
system input. The microcontroller processes the data to run
servo motors 1 and 2 after the separation process, it will
continue to monitor the water with the TDS sensor and
display input and output parameters via the LCD to monitor
system work.
Water-oil separator system hardware:
1. Optical sensor functions to detect oil and water from
the laser light received by the LDR [8].
Figure 2. Mechanical Design Prototypes
Software Design
In designing the software only use Arduino to read optical
sensors and TDS sensors and control servo. The overall
software design is shown in Figure 3.
Optical Sensor Readout
Optical sensor reading is used to detect oil and water from
the laser light received by the LDR via the Arduino digital
pin. The sensor values are in the form of digital outputs 0 and
1 as the parameters used to determine the oil and water in
this system. In this research, pin D3 is an Arduino pinout
which is connected to an optical sensor.
TDS sensor readings

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TDS sensor readings are used to determine water quality accommodated in a tank after which it will be monitored by a
after going through the separation process via Arduino TDS sensor with a content condition <15 ppm and> 15 ppm..
analog pins. The range of sensor values is between 0 -
1000ppm. The sensor value received is the parameter used to 3. Experimental Result
determine the water condition. In this research, pin A1 is the In this chapter, the results of the tests that have been
Arduino pinout which is connected to the TDS sensor. carried out and their discussion are presented. This test is
Servo motor control done to find out whether the system that has been created is
Servo motor control is used to adjust the position of the in accordance with the plan or not. Testing is done for each
faucet as an oil and water filter by turning 90 ° to open and component. The following are the results of the tests that
close by 0 ° by getting a digital signal input from the LDR have been carried out:
sensor in the form of 0 and 1 if the LDR gets a digital signal
3.1 Componen Testing
of 0 then servo 1 is active to open the faucet by 90 ° and
servo 2 turns off and closes at 0 ° and if the LDR gets a Component testing is
digital signal 1 then servo 2 actively opens the faucet by 90 ° carried out to determine the
and servo 1 turns off to close by 0 °. The condition of the performance of the
servo motor is influenced by the delay time when it rotates, component to function
properly. To get the error
so the desired delay time (setpoint) is needed. This is because
value for each experiment,
if the servo motor rotates too fast, a lot of water will be
the test results can be
mixed into the oil. Meanwhile, if it is too slow, the oil can be calculated using the equation
mixed with water. In this study, pins D9 and D10 are below:
Arduino pinouts which are connected to servo motor
actuators. %Error =
The following is a flow chart that the author made: Componen Testing−measuring instrument data
x 100
measuringinstrument data

3.1.1 Optical Sensor Testing

Optical sensor testing is carried out to detect oil and
water using an LDR and laser sensor. In this test, a digital
signal reading is carried out on the LDR sensor by receiving
light from the laser through a transparent funnel. The test is
shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Testing the LDR sensor

3.1.2 TDS Sensor Testing

This test is carried out to determine the accuracy of
the TDS sensor on the TDS meter measuring instrument and
to monitor the water content after going through the
separation process [9]. The sensor is first connected to the
Arduino so that it can display analog values via the Arduino
IDE monitor serial. While the measuring instrument used to
determine TDS in water is the TDS Meter. In the test, 5 types
of liquids were used with different TDS values. The liquid is
made from water added with salt in different doses, then the
Figure 3. Flow Chart System liquid is measured using the TDS Meter shown in Figure 4
and the error reading is shown in Table 1.
From Figure 3, the prototype work system is made, in
the initial step the LDR sensor detects the oil and the water
comes out in the form of a servo as a separator and will be
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TDS sensor testing analysis using Arduino as shown

Figure 5. TDS Sensor Testing in the sensor table is able to read PPM with an average
reading error of 2.52%. In this test using a TDS meter
measuring instrument as a reference for measuring the
Table 1. TDS Sensor Testing
concentration of water. This test shows that the sensor has a
T T good readability with very low error.
N T D D E
o e S S r
. s r 3.2 Testing Monitoring system
t S m o The monitoring system testing being tested is the oil
e e r
n t
and water detection system as well as the water content
s e ( condition displayed on the LCD screen. The test results can
o r % be seen in table 2, figure 5 oil and water detection.
r )
( ( Table 2. Testing of the oil and water detection system
P P LDR Las Me LCD Ser Ser
P P er dia vo vo
M M 1 2
) )
1 Connecte ON Wat “Wat Op Clo
1 2 1 1 d er er” en se
2 Disconne ON Oil “Oil” Clo Op
2 1 1 6 cted se en
5 6 .
2
5
3
3 1 1 2 Figure 6. Testing of the oil and water detection system
2 2 .
2 3 6 Table 3. Testing of water content systems
6 TDS Buzzer LCD
4 15 < Off Ready to throw
4 2 2 0
15 > On Not ready to throw
5 6 .
6 3 8
1
5
5 3 3 1
0 1 . Figure 7. Testing the water content system
9 5 9
2
3.3 Testing the Separator Process Time
A
v . This test is carried out to find out how long the
e 5
separation process is complete on the tool being made. This
r 2
test uses a mixture of oil and water with a volume of 0.5
a
g liters to 3 liters. The test results can be seen in table 4 and the
e liquid composition can be seen in Figure 7.

e
r
r
o
r

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Figure 8. Composition of oil and water fluids Table 5. Composition test 2:

1

Initial Fluid Final Fluid Time

Table 4. Testing the separator process time Volume Volume (Hours : Minutes :
No (Liter) (Liter) Seconds)
Volume Time . Water Oil Water Oil Separation
fluid (Hours: Minutes: Seconds)
No (Liter) 1 2 1 1,84 0,90 00 : 07 : 47
Water Oil Separation 2 2 1 1,78 0,87 00 : 07 : 59
.
3 2 1 1,74 0,84 00 : 07 : 55
Average 1.78 0,87 00 : 07 : 53
1 0,5 0,5 00 : 02 : 58

2 1 1 00 : 05 : 30

3 1,5 1,5 00 : 07 : 14

It can be seen that the results of separating oil and Figure 10. Liquid composition 1.5: 1.5
water with a total composition of 0.5: 0.5 are 1 liter of the
separation process for 2 minutes 58 seconds, for a 1: 1 Table 6. Composition test 2: 1
composition the total separation process is 2 liters for 5 Time
minutes 30 seconds and for composition 1, 5: 1,5 a total of 3 Initial Fluid Final Fluid
Volume Volume (Hours : Minutes :
liters of separation process for 7 minutes 14 seconds. So that No. Seconds)
the working capacity of the prototype reaches 23.25 liters / (Liter) (Liter)
hour Water Oil Water Oil Separation
1 1,5 1,5 1,45 1,49 00 : 07 : 39
3.4 Testing Effectiveness 2 1,5 1,5 1,42 1,45 00 : 07 : 46
This test is carried out to determine how much 3 1,5 1,5 1,39 1,42 00 : 07 : 50
effectiveness of oil and water separation in the tool being Average 1.44 1,45 00 : 07 : 45
made. This effectiveness test was carried out with 3 tests of
different liquid compositions and was carried out with 3
repetitions of the experiment. The first test is the composition
of water and oil fluids 2: 1 liter, the second test the
composition of water and oil fluids is 1.5: 1.5 liters, and the
third test is the composition of the liquid water and oil 1: 2
liters. To get the effectiveness value of the test results, it can
Figure 11. Liquid composition 1: 2
be calculated using the equation below:

Separation Effectiveness (%) = Table 7. Testing composition 1: 2

Final oil Volume(Liter ) Initial Fluid Final Fluid Time
x 100 Volume Volume (Hours : Minutes :
Initial oil Volume ( Liter) No Seconds)
(Liter) (Liter)
. Water Oil Water Oil Separation

1 1 2 0,87 1,87 00 : 07 : 41
2 1 2 0,84 1,81 00 : 07 : 58
3 1 2 0,77 1,78 00 : 07 : 55
Average 0.82 1,82 00 : 07 : 51
Figure 9. Liquid composition 2: 1
3.5 Effectiveness analysis
The effectiveness of the waste oil / oil separator is the
ratio between the final oil volume and the initial oil volume

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[10]. The effectiveness of separation using oily water test 3.
material with a mixture composition of 2 liters of water: 1
liter of oil, 1.5 liters of water: 1.5 liters of oil and 1 liter of
water: 2 liters of oil is seen in the table below and the
prototype image.
From the results of testing the effectiveness of the oil
separator process on the prototype that was made
reached 87% to 96%.

References
[1] Y. A. Rahayu, "The
Government Acts on
Tanker Ships That Dispose
of Illegal Waste," Liputan
6 04-Oct-2019.
Figure 12. Prototype Results
[2] IMO Convention, MARPOL
Table 8. Results of the effectiveness prototype 73/78 CHAPTER OF
MARPOL Annex 1 Reg.4
Inital Final regulates that "any
Liquid Oil Oil Effectiveness discharge of oil generated
Compositio Volume Volume (%) from the ship's engine
n (Liter) (Liter) room may not exceed 15
2:1 1 0,87 87 ppm".
1,5:1,5 1,5 1,45 96
1:2 2 1,82 91 [3] M. A. Cahyani. "Bilge
Design and Build an
Based on the results of testing the tool using the test Electrochemical Based
material composition of 2 liters of water with 1 liter of oil. Oily Water Separator".
Thus, the average separation effectiveness was 87%. In the Journal of Marine
test using the test material composition of 1.5 liters of water Engineering-Faculty of
with 1.5 liters of oil, the average separation effectiveness is Marine Technology-
Sepuluh Nopember
96%. In the test using the composition of the test material 1
Institute of Technology
liter of water with 2 liters of oil obtained an average
Surabaya 2011
separation effectiveness of 91%. Judging from the average
results, the effectiveness of the tool works well and as [4] Tri Adi Siswanto. (2013).
expected. "Bilga System"
https://id.scribd.com/docu
4. Conclusion ment/129589798/Sistem-
Bilga
In this final project, the prototype of the automatic
bilge oily water separator monitoring system on a [5] Donald F. Boesch, Carl H.
microcontroller based vessel and the discussion can be Hershner, Jerome H.
concluded as follows: Milgram “Oil spills and
the marine environment”,
1. This prototype is designed with a gravity system Ford Foundation, Energy
where the process of separating liquid waste and oil is Policy Project
based on differences in the density of water and oil.
The separation system uses an LDR sensor and a laser [6] Ornitz, Barbara E., Esq.
to detect oil and water. The monitoring system uses Champ, Michael A., “Oil
Spill First Principles:
the TDS sensor to monitor water conditions after the
Prevention & Best
separation process is complete.
Response”, Elsevier,
Amsterdam, 2002.
2. From the results of the test, the time for the separation
process with 1 liter of liquid is 2 minutes 58 seconds, [7] A document on Oil-Water
so the working capacity of the prototype is 23.25 liters separator policies and
/ hour. standards retrieved from
https://charmeck.org/city/c
harlotte/

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Utilities/GreaseFree/Docu
ments/Oil

[8] B. A. Saputra, M. Rivai, and

T. Tasripan, "Design of
Water - Oil Separation
System Based on
Adsorption Method Using
Teensy Microcontroller,"
ITS Engineering Journal,
vol. 7, no. 2, Mar. 2018.

[9] R. Zamora, Harmadi, and

Wildian, "Designing a
TDS (Total Dissolved
Solid) Water Measurement
Tool with a Real Time
Conductivity Sensor,"
Journal of Science and
Technology, vol. VII, no.
1, June. 2015.

[10] Tri Wahyu Wibowo,

Herry Boesono, and
Indradi Setiyanto,
"Performance Test of Oily
Water Separator for
Fishing Vessel in
Laboratory Scale," Journal
of Fisheries Resources
Utilization Management
and Technology, Volume
3, Nomor 4, Tahun 2014,
Hlm 1-9.

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