History:
The industrial revolution created a by-product harmful to natural resources: oil flowing into water sources. A vessel owner along the Rhine River in Europe by the name of Einfelt first attempted to collect the free floating oil. Equipped with a rowboat filled with a couple of flat planks attached to the side of the boat set like wings, he scooped the surface of the river. This would deposit the collected liquid into the boat and when returning to shore the oil was separated from water by gravity!
After much time, effort, and refinement, Mr. Einfelt constructed a land based unit incorporating an improved coalescing device using a compressed air system which achieved a semi-automatic operation of the process. It was patented by the inventor but not practical for the market place yet.
At this point in time Mr. David Wright, President of a U.S. towing company named National Marine Service (originally in New York City, later St. Louis, Missouri) recognized the need for government regulation for pollution control on the waterways, and perhaps the oceans. He purchased the patents for further development.
National Marine operated 50 vessels which was perfect testing ground. By the time the Coast Guard had issued regulations governing oil discharge, National Marine was one of the first to obtain certification for it’s BilgeMasterTM system. During the course of development of the oily/water separator systems, as well as many other shipboard devices, National Marine Services partnered with a St. Louis company called W.J. Industries. W.J. assisted in product design and manufacturing of many of the products offered to marine industry by National Marine Services. It was a natural transition for W.J. to acquire the NMS manufacturing divisions when Mr. Wright retired. The new division of W.J. Industries was named National Fluid Separators.
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