Microemulsion cleaning method has been proved to be an effective way to clean oily sludge with low interfacial tension and high solubilizing ability for non-miscible liquids. In this paper, the percentage range of the microemulsion in the formulation was obtained by studying phase behavior of the microemulsion. The response surface method was used to model and optimize the microemulsion to obtain the best formulation: n-BuOH content at 9.89%, NaCl content at 2.24% and AES/APG ratio at 3.75, and the oil removal rate reached 97.28%. Meanwhile, the cleaning conditions of oil sludge were also optimized by the response surface method and the optimal cleaning parameters were determined as liquid-solid ratio at 4.2, stirring rate at 157 r·min-1, and stirring time at 38 min. In addition, some experiments were carried out to confirm the simulation results, affording the oil removal rate of 98.79%. SEM and FTIR confirmed that the oil on the sludge can be removed by microemulsion.
Keywords: Microemulsion cleaning; oil removal; oily sludge; response surface method (RSM).