Estudo do reaproveitamento energético de óleos lubrificantes usados

Abstract

Used lubricanting oil has led to serious environmental problems because its irresponsible disposal causes pollution of rivers, springs and water sources. Besides, when it is burned without control and any care about the emission limits defined by environmental government agencies, it launches toxicant gases and oxides in the atmosphere. In order to reduce such environmental impact, the National Oil Agency (ANP) issued the federal regulation 125/99 which establish the collection of at least 30% of the oil sold in every brazilian estate. However, in some regions like in the north or northeastearn Brazil there is not a good infrastructure to collect the used lubricant oil and no industrial plant capable to reprocess the used oil. This work intends to evaluate the possibility of using the used lubricant oil in the fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCC). By this process one could take advantage of such a residue, since we suggested it has a great potential as an energy source and improving the conversion in catalytic cracking processes. The American legislation allows the use of up to 1% used lubricant oil his units of refinery principally how load of FCC. The used lubricant oil used has been submitted to a pretreatment to remove metallic elements, using adsorbent elements. The pretreated oil was mixed to gasoil and submitted to the catalytic cracking in a fluid bed in a experimental unit. The adsorbent materials used in this experiment, in the process of the removal of elements were: used FCC catalyst, the activated clays (Filtrol trade mark) and the activated alumin CPN from Alcoa World Chemicals. A wide range of temperatures and, adsorbent masses were selected and tested. Concerning to the issue and bad use it has been found out that there are lots of companies that fulfill used lubricant oil collections in a clandestine way, using that issue oil burned in ovens, causing harms to the environment and health of local people. Concerning to the material to be added at the FCC oil, the results demonstrated that the temperature was statistically significant to the separation of several elements examined, and the best condition was set to 100ºC. The Filtrol activated clay showed the best results with an average ratio of removal of 45% for Ca, Mg and Zn which are harming metals to the cracking catalytic process. In the ACE the used lubricant oil showed itself efficient in the conversion of nafta (~58%) an GLP (~28%) turning better fulfilment comparing with the gasoil that shows us some viability to this refulfill.