Modeling of cumulative release on long term leaching behaviour of selected oil sludge from crude oil terminal and petroleum refining plant

Abstract

Management of oil sludge containing environmentally toxic elements is a major problem in crude oil processing industry. Oil sludge samples from the petroleum refinery plant in Melaka and crude oil terminal in Sarawak were analysed. The aim of present work is to study long term leaching behaviour of arsenic (As), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr) and zinc (Zn) from oil sludge. Tank leaching test was carried out and the samples were analysed using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results were studied using LeachXS software to plot the graphs of elements concentration in order to study the leaching behaviour of toxic elements in oil sludge. The long term leaching (100 years) modeling was calculated using equations referred to National Institute of Public Health and the Environment Bilthoven (RIVM) and the results were plotted for cumulative release in different areas of oil sludge. Tank leaching test of the oil sludge samples from petroleum refinery plant in Melaka showed concentrations of As, Co, Cr and Zn ranging from 0.205 to 1.102, 0.031–0.454, 0.016–0.086 and 0.409–8.238 mg/l, respectively while the concentrations of As, Co, Cr and Zn in oil sludge samples from crude oil terminal in Sarawak were in the range of 0.002–0.089, 0.001–0.033, 0.006–0.016 and 0.100–2.744 mg/l, respectively. On the other hand, results on cumulative release from the modeling of long term leaching (100 years) showed that As, Co, Cr and Zn concentrations were proportional to the quantity of oil sludge. In conclusion, during extrapolation of release of toxic elements using the data in the laboratory, several other factors were taken into account to suit environmental conditions such as soil moisture, the negative logarithm of the effective diffusion coefficient (pDe) and temperature, while the long-term behaviour of As, Co, Cr and Zn was proportional to the quantity of oil sludge to be disposed off.