Base oil recovery from waste lubricant oil by polar solvent extraction intensified by ultrasound

Abstract

This paper proposes a greener approach to the intensification of base oil recovery for truck engines (32,500 km of use) using ethanol, propan-2-ol, 2-methylpropan-1-ol, and butan-1-ol as solvents for the extraction of base oil, combining mechanical stirring (220 rpm) and ultrasound (25 °C, 24 kHz, and 400 W). The results indicated that the recovery yields of the base oil, using the mechanical stirring and ultrasound (MS-US) system, for ethanol, propan-2-ol, 2-methylpropan-1-ol, and butan-1-ol were approximately 3.1, 25.6, 71.6, and 85.5%, respectively. By contrast, the recovery yields using only mechanical stirring were 8.8, 28.9, 58.9, and 76.1%, respectively. The system with pre-extraction could effectively remove Ca (85.3-93.0%), Mg (67.2-82.9%), Na (31.7-62.5%), and Zn (0.0-71.7%). Finally, the results showed a reduction of almost 100% for the concentrations of Al, Cr, Fe, and Mo in the pre-extraction system. The mechanical stirring (5 min) and ultrasound (5 min) system were able to intensify the extraction process using environmentally friendly solvents.

Keywords: Characterization; Contaminant removal; Mechanical stirring; Metal removal; Motor oil; Re-refining; Treatment; Ultrasound-assisted.