Method of smoldering combustion for refinery oil sludge treatment

Cheng Zhao; Yuzhong Li; Zongwei Gan; Maofeng Nie

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124995

Method of smoldering combustion for refinery oil sludge treatment

J Hazard Mater. 2021 May 5:409:124995. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124995. Epub 2020 Dec 30.

Authors

Cheng Zhao¹, Yuzhong Li², Zongwei Gan¹, Maofeng Nie³

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering Laboratory for Reducing Emissions from Coal Combustion, Engineering Research Center of Environmental Thermal Technology of Ministry of Education, Shandong Key Laboratory of Energy Carbon Reduction and Resource Utilization, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, China.
² National Engineering Laboratory for Reducing Emissions from Coal Combustion, Engineering Research Center of Environmental Thermal Technology of Ministry of Education, Shandong Key Laboratory of Energy Carbon Reduction and Resource Utilization, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, China. Electronic address: lyz@sdu.edu.cn.
³ National Engineering Laboratory for Reducing Emissions from Coal Combustion, Engineering Research Center of Environmental Thermal Technology of Ministry of Education, Shandong Key Laboratory of Energy Carbon Reduction and Resource Utilization, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, China; Shandong Low Carbon Expert Sci. & Tech. Co. Ltd., Jinan, Shandong 250002, China.

PMID: 33450516
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124995

Abstract

Refinery oil sludge is a type of hazardous waste generated during petroleum refining. Smoldering combustion has been studied in waste treatment but has not been applied to refinery oil sludge treatment. This work verified the feasibility of smoldering combustion for refinery oil sludge treatment through bench-scale experiments. Experimental result showed that the solid residue that remained from smoldering combustion of oil sludge was odorless, granular, and brick-red. The mass and volume of the residue were much smaller than those of the original oil sludge. The typical substances in the oil sludge (i.e., petroleum hydrocarbons [C₁₀-C₄₀]) were not found in the residue, thereby indicating the good performance of smoldering combustion in treating oil sludge. Water and oil were recovered by condensing the off-gas. The composition of the recovered oil was similar to coking diesel. The calorific value of the recovered oil was higher than that of kerosene, thereby demonstrating the possibility of reutilization. The components of noncondensable off-gas contained a small amount of SO₂ and NO_x and a large amount of H₂, CO, and H₂S, which need to be further purified. Three factors influencing the smoldering performance of oil sludge, including moisture content, filler to oil sludge ratio, and airflow rate, were explored.

Keywords: Harmless disposal; Hazardous waste; Oil sludge; Resource utilization; Smoldering combustion.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't