Treatment and Stabilization of Petroleum Oily Sludge

ABSTRACT In the process of oil extraction and refining, a large amount of oily sludge is produced every year which has become an obstacle to the development of petrochemical industry. This research was conducted to treat and stabilize the petroleum oily sludge using pyrolysis technique. The specific objectives include; the characterization (proximate analysis, ultimate analysis and higher heating value) of the oily sludge, pyrolysis of the sludge, stabilization of the residue and determination of total petroleum hydrocarbon of the pyrolysed oil and the residue obtained. 500 g of the oily sludge sample was placed in a reactor heated at a temperature range of 400-500oC and three products (Pyrolysed oil, product gas and residue) was collected after 3hours. The weight of the residue and the volume of the pyrolysed oil were recorded. The same procedure was repeated for 1000g and 2000g of oily sludge heated for 3 and 4hours. The residue gotten after the pyrolysis was stabilized using the mixture of sand and cement as a binder. The Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons of the oily sludge determined for the three samples of pyrolysed oil yielded 5, 4, 52% and 86wt% for the oily sludge sample. Hence, this finding indicates that the oil yield increases with initial feedstock mass and reaction time reaching the highest value of 28.5g for Sample C however the reaction process reduces TPH significantly with higher sample weights and longer reaction time which resulted in more effective removal.