Incoming wastewater is preheated in a heat exchanger before delivery to a
flash chamber through an orifice for flashing into water vapor rising
into an upper section of the flash chamber which also has a bottom
section into which liquid waste oil or other contaminants settles. Rise
of such water vapor into the upper chamber section is induced by a vacuum
established therein by a vacuum pump withdrawing the water vapor in a
superheated and compressed condition for cooling within a condenser from
which the incoming wastewater is delivered to a heat exchanger for
preheating. The water vapor during rise into the upper section of the
flash chamber is filtered to extract contaminates therefrom while
liquefied water vapor thereafter formed therein is collected before the
remaining water vapor is cooled into the condensate for collection within
a distillate tank from which it is withdrawn for overboard discharge
after being monitored for oil content. The waste oil and other
contaminants in the flash chamber are also withdrawn for separate
collection and storage. Such collections of the condensate extracted from
the water vapor, the liquefied water vapor and the waste oil and other
contaminants are effected by pumps driven under automatic control.