Continuous catalytic pyrolysis of oily sludge using U-shape reactor for producing saturates-enriched light oil

Abstract

Continuous catalytic pyrolysis of oily sludge was carried out in a special U-shape reactor for producing saturates-enriched light oil. The sludge underwent thermal pyrolysis first and then catalytic pyrolysis. During the thermal pyrolysis, chain hydrocarbons were first cracked and further polymerized into aromatics. The effect of temperatures (400–800 °C) on the products was investigated and the maximum liquid yield (67.7%) was obtained at 500 °C. High temperature promoted polymerization, thus the distribution of aromatics in the liquid product was increased and was more concentrated in polyaromatics at 800 °C. In the catalytic upgrading stage, dolomite was used as catalyst and aromatics were adsorbed on it, either aggregated or decomposed. As a result, a light oil product with 57.0% saturates was obtained at the residence time of 8.9 s due to the conversion of aromatics and heavy hydrocarbons into light aliphatic hydrocarbons such as straight chain hydrocarbons. Compared with the oil phase in the raw sludge sample, the content of saturates was increased by 45.0% and that of the asphaltenes was reduced by 88.5%. Meanwhile, the inherent moisture in the oily sludge could participate in the steam reforming reaction, promoting the decomposition of aromatics and leading to an increase in the H2 generation. Moreover, the release of H2S was reduced from 0.132 to 0.005 mol per kg sludge and the sulfur content of the oil product was also decreased in the presence of dolomite. The deactivation of dolomite can be attributed to the carbonization of CaO and deposition of polyaromatic coke on the catalyst surface.