Petroleum sludge treatment and oil recovery: Review paper

Abstract

Oily sludge is a type of semi solid hydrocarbon waste material that produced by the petroleum industry. It is generally mixture of water, crude oil, and sludge that is solid matter. As it contains large amounts of various types of hydrocarbon like paraffinic hydrocarbon, saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbon, cycloalkanes, aromatic compound , poly aromatic hydrocarbon, benzene series, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, some metals, sulphur, nitrogen and other toxic and harmful substances, owing to this it substantial very big threat to human health and the surrounding creature as well as nature ;therefore, it is very much essential to treat this harmful oily sludge to reduce its toxicity. However, a large component of oily sludge is crude oil which can be further processed in refinery and has great reuse and recycling value. There are several way to recover crude oil from this oily sludge by using different technologies, like solvent extraction, higher magnitude centrifugation, ultrasonic separation, electoral treatment, flotation, supercritical treatment, and some other technique have been developed for the treatment of water contaminated oily sludge. Purpose of this review paper is to discuss the development of such various technique and to summarize as well compare their advantages, disadvantages, along with its mechanisms of action.it is also describing cost effective process and their energy requirement.