Diploma Thesis Defense by Ms Eleni Gianiki
09/19/2019
Thesis Title: «Characterization of bituminous waste from oil refinery»
Friday 14 February 2020, at: 11:00, Venue: Hall K1.119
Examination Committee
- Professor Gidarakos.E (advisor)
- Dr. Aivalioti M.
- Assistant Professor Nikolaos Xekoukoulotakis
Abstract
Refining crude oil is a complex process that takes place in several stages. During the different processing steps, significant amounts of oily waste are generated. One of the major challenges of the modern oil industry is the environmentally friendly management of this waste.
Bitumen is defined as any natural mixture of solid and semisolid hydrocarbons that does not distill under vacuum. The composition of bitumen contains thousands of different chemical compounds, while as a material it appears black, sticky and highly viscous. The aforementioned characteristics make the material difficult to handle. In additional, bitumen presents a wide variation in both composition and characteristics depending on the reservoir location from which it originates.
Bituminous waste is a product from the refinery processing of crude oil. Regarding the characterization of bituminous waste, it is a particularly sensitive process because the results depend on the sampling technique and the analytical protocol used in the laboratory. Since the detailed characterization of bituminous waste is a complex procedure, usually only its main properties are determined.
The potential use of bituminous materials and their conversion into marketable petroleum products depends on both their composition and the applied technologies for their transformation. Successful utilization of refinery waste material can reduce the environmental impact of the oil industry and is therefore desirable.
The aim of this study is the characterization of a bituminous refinery waste. For this purpose a group of analyzes was conducted in order to estimate the chemical composition of the waste, as well as, its main physical properties. The procedure required the fractionation of the bituminous waste using different solvents to realize the extractions, as well as the exploitation of the different adsorbing capacity of some adsorbents for each petroleum fraction. In particular volatile solids, metal concentration were determined and elemental analysis was performed. Finally, detailed fractionation of the bituminous waste in hydrocarbons, resins, asphaltenes, carbenes and carboids and determination of the organic content took place.
