Study of oil sludge characteristics and oil extraction process

ABSTRACT:

This work aimed to recover the oil present in oily sludge by extraction process in order to reuse it as fuel. Two experimental designs were applied: fractional factorial and Doehlert. Through characterization of the oily sludge (physico-chemical analysis, CHN and S elemental, inorganic and organic), it was found that the oily sludge used consists of 36.2% oil, 16.8% ash, 40% water and 7% volatile compounds. The efficiency obtained in the oil extraction process was 70%, in average. However, statistical analysis showed that the quadratic model did not satisfactorily the process due to the complexity of the studied material. By the other hand, applying ANN the coefficient of determination became 87.5% that is quite satisfactory.

Keywords:
oil sludge; extraction; factorial; Doehlert; ANN