Abstract
Oil sludge is the primary pollutant produced by the petroleum industry, which is characterized by large quantities, difficult disposal, and high toxicity. Improper treatment of oil sludge will pose a severe threat to the human living environment. Self-sustaining treatment for active remediation (STAR) technology has a specific potential for treating oil sludge, with low energy consumption, short remediation time, and high removal efficiency. Given the low smoldering porosity, poor air permeability, and poor repair effect of oil sludge, this paper considered coarse river sand as the porous medium, built a smoldering reaction device, conducted a comparative study on smoldering experiments of oil sludge with and without river sand, and studied the key factors affecting smoldering of oil sludge. The study shows that the repair effect is greatly improved by adding river sand, increasing the pore, and improving air permeability, and the total petroleum hydrocarbon removal rate reaches more than 98%, which meets the requirements of oil sludge treatment. When the mass ratio of oil sludge to river sand (sludge–sand ratio) is 2:1, the flow velocity is 5.39 cm/s, and the particle size of the medium is 2–4 mm. In addition, the best conditions for smoldering occur. The average peak temperature, average propagation speed, and average removal efficiency are relatively high. The peak temperature occurs in a short time; the heating time is also short, and the heat loss is low. Moreover, the generation of toxic and harmful gases is reduced, and secondary pollution is hindered. The experiment indicates that the porous media play a crucial role in the smoldering combustion of oil sludge.
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The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (number: 42177052).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis, and the first draft of the manuscript were completed by Shuai Zhang. The entire experiment was funded by Mei Hong. Experimental design guidance and literature collection were completed by Aiyuan Jia. All authors commented on the previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zhang, S., Hong, M. & Jia, A. Feasibility study of porous media for treating oily sludge with self-sustaining treatment for active remediation technology. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 70131–70142 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27196-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27196-7