Highly Efficient Treatment of Oily Sludge by a Novel High-Speed Stirring Method at Room Temperature

Abstract

Oily sludge is one of the main hazardous wastes which seriously endangers the ecological environment and human health. In this paper, in order to effectively treat oily sludge, a novel high-speed stirring (HSS) method was proposed to clean oily sludge, and the main parameters affecting the residual oil rate of oily sludge were studied experimentally. Firstly, the cleaning time and stirring speed were optimized in the one-stage HSS cleaning, and then the optimal cleaning time of two-stage HSS cleaning was determined by the response surface method. The results suggested that the oil can be efficiently separated by high-speed stirring at room temperature, and that the two-stage cleaning with a circular-hole outlet (Rotor-C) followed by a vertical hole-outlet (Rotor-V) presented the best effect. The optimal stirring speed was 6000 r/min, and the optimal cleaning times of the two-stage cleaning were 7 min and 8 min, respectively. After cleaning, the residual oil rate of the treated oily sludge was 1.65%, and the removal rate of the petroleum hydrocarbons was 84.3%.