How oil skimmers work
The functionality of all oil skimmers is based on the same basic principles. Only the implementation is different.
They all use the higher viscosity of the oil to enable separation. As oil sticks to foreign bodies longer than water, structures are often used to which the oil sticks and can then be wiped off again. These can be belts, straps, hoses or similar. This results in the different types of oil skimmers.
The prerequisite for this is that the oil separates from the water. This occurs due to the different densities of water and oil.
More about the other types of oil skimmers: