船舶對海洋環境造成的污染，其主要來源是因主機的漏油及閥件、管路等漏水，及人為疏失等等。例如船舶為航行安全，壓艙後之海水形成的油污水，油輪清洗貨油艙或油櫃的洗艙水，以及裝卸事故中的溢油等。為了執行1973 年防污公約，議定書或73/78 防污公約已於1983/10/2 生效。此後機艙的污水都需經過處理，排入海裡的污水含油量，需符合國際標準。
學校教學設備中，若能將油水分離器的起動步驟及操作過程，以動態模擬來顯現，除了可減少經常性拆裝油水分離器外，所有的操作過程都和現場實際操作是完全相同的。同時可由模擬操作過程，學習作動原理及啟停分離器的正確步驟，若是操作步驟錯誤，會有警示訊息呈現並不會損壞電腦軟體程式。但實際分離器，卻不允許錯誤操作。同學籍由動態操作過程，及錯誤過程學習當中，達到主題學習及教學目地，這是真實油水分離器操作，所無法作到的。

The main source for the pollution of ships in marine environment includes oil spills of engines and valves, water leakages of pipes, human errors, and so on. For instance, the sea water is pressed into ballast tankers for navigational safety, the water is used to wash cargo tanks and oil tanks of oil tankers, and the loading and oil spill for loading and unloading
accidents.
In order to implement MARPOL 1973, the Protocol or MARPOL 73/78 Convention had been taken effect from October 2, 1983. The sewage of cabin should be treated to satisfy the international standard prior to discharging oily wastewater into the sea.
If the starting and operating procedures of oil-water separator can be shown in dynamic simulation, the real operation in this device can be reduced. All operating processes and actual operations in loading and unloading are the same as real oil-water separator. The correct procedures of starting and stopping oil-water separator can be learned from the
learning of dynamic simulation. Any errors in software operation will not affect and break down the computer program. However, wrong operation is not allowed in actual operation in oil-water separator. Learning project and teaching purpose can be reached by dynamic operation in this learning for error process. This cannot be achieved by real oil-water separator teaching.