Creosote from both oil shale and petroleum, and are known as oil-tar creosote when derived from oil tar, and as water-gas-tar creosote when derived from the tar of water gas. Creosote also has been made from pre-coal formations such as lignite, yielding lignite-tar creosote, and peat, yielding peat-tar creosote. The term creosote has a broad range of definitions depending on the origin of the coal tar oil and end use of the material. With respect to wood preservatives, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the term creosote to mean a pesticide for use as a wood preservative meeting the
Wastewater treatment "primary sedimentation tanks". It is also widely used for the treatment of other wastewaters. Solids that are heavier than water will accumulate at the bottom of quiescent settling basins. More complex clarifiers also have skimmers to simultaneously remove floating grease like soap scum and solids like feathers or wood chips. Containers like the API oil-water separator are specifically designed to separate non-polar liquids. Colloidal suspensions of fine solids may be removed by filtration through fine physical barriers distinguished from coarser screens or sieves by the ability to remove particles smaller than the openings through which the water passes. Other types