The Separation of Hydrocarbons from Contaminated Sand Using Ionic Liquids

使用离子液体从污染砂中分离碳氢化合物

• 批准号: 1045998
• 负责人: Paul Painter
• 金额: $ 17.89万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-07-15 至 2012-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1045998&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Separation; Hydrocarbons; Contaminated; Sand; Using

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT: This award is funded under the Rapid Research Response program. The proposed research is aimed at developing a process to separate oil and tar from contaminated sand using ionic liquids (ILs). The catastrophe now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico will have a disastrous effect on many beaches. In addition, sand berms and barriers are being built to protect fragile wetlands. There will be large quantities of contaminated sand that will need to be treated. Initial plans appear to involve storage in designated landfills and lagoons. Treating this material and cleaning contaminated sand is both an urgent, immediate need and long-term problem that requires a timely response.In preliminary work at Penn State it has been shown very recently that ILs can be used to separate bitumen from tar or oil sands. Bitumen is a complex material consisting of molecules that range in size from small to polymeric. Oil that is washed onto beaches has usually lost its "light" or volatile fraction, leaving a sludge of heavy oil or tar balls that largely consist of oligomeric and polymeric hydrocarbons. Present methods used to separate oil, bitumen or tar from sand are expensive or environmentally challenging (e.g., the hot or warm water process used to obtain bitumen from Canadian tar sands).Bitumen can be extracted from tar sands using ILs alone or in conjunction with a non-polar solvent. The separation occurs at room temperature and does not require the use of water in the initial separation process (the disposal of waste process water is a big problem in the oil or tar sands industry). Essentially all of the bitumen is recovered in a very clean form. The minerals (sand) are also recovered in an uncontaminated form after removing residual IL with small amounts of (cold) water. Preliminary but unpublished work has shown that this process works equally well with both oil-contaminated sand and the weathered and hardened polymeric hydrocarbons formed during "ageing". The proposed research will establish the appropriate choice of IL, proportions of co-solvent (to lower the viscosity of the sludge and tar to facilitate separation), kinetics of separation, etc., necessary to obtain a clean separation of hydrocarbons from sand, such that the former is in a state suitable for delivery to a refinery and the latter can be used for environmental remediation. A bench-top separation unit will be built in order to determine the operating parameters necessary for a large-scale process. Although the proposed work is application-motivated, it is anticipated that a technology demonstration will lead to new fundamental science such as an understanding of the interactions between ILs, minerals, and hydrocarbons, and how this affects phase behavior and separation processes. Obtaining an insight into these processes forms the intellectual merit of the proposal.NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT:This award is funded under the Rapid Research Response program. The proposed research is aimed at developing a process to separate oil and tar from contaminated sand using ionic liquids (ILs). The catastrophe now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico will have a disastrous effect on many beaches. In addition, sand berms and barriers are being built to protect fragile wetlands. There will be large quantities of contaminated sand that will need to be treated. Initial plans appear to involve storage in designated landfills and lagoons. Treating this material and cleaning contaminated sand is both an urgent, immediate need and long-term problem that requires a timely response. In very recent preliminary work at Penn State it has been shown that ILs can be used to separate bitumen from tar or oil sands. In addition to the immediate potential impact on the Gulf beaches if this project is successful and adopted, there also will be broader impacts, in that the separation of oil from sand or other minerals is not only a novel and potentially extremely effective way of cleaning sand and soils after an environmental disaster, but also important in other areas. Examples of these are extracting bitumen and asphalt from Utah tar sands; cleaning sand that is part of the product stream obtained in oil well operations; separating oil from drilling muds; and treating the large amounts of so-called oily sludge generated in refinery operations.

技术摘要：该奖项由快速研究响应计划资助。该研究旨在开发一种利用离子液体（ILs）从受污染的沙子中分离石油和焦油的工艺。墨西哥湾正在发生的灾难将对许多海滩造成灾难性的影响。此外，为了保护脆弱的湿地，正在修建沙堤和屏障。将会有大量受污染的沙子需要处理。最初的计划似乎包括在指定的垃圾填埋场和泻湖中储存。处理这些物质和清洗受污染的沙子既是一个紧迫的、即时的需要，也是一个需要及时响应的长期问题。在宾州州立大学的初步工作中，最近已经表明，激光激光可以用来从焦油或油砂中分离沥青。沥青是一种复杂的材料，由小到聚合物的分子组成。被冲到海滩上的石油通常已经失去了其“轻”或挥发性部分，留下的是重油或焦油球的污泥，主要由低聚物和聚合碳氢化合物组成。目前用于从沙子中分离石油、沥青或焦油的方法既昂贵又具有环境挑战性（例如，从加拿大焦油砂中提取沥青的热水或温水法）。沥青可以单独或与非极性溶剂一起从沥青砂中提取。分离在室温下进行，并且在初始分离过程中不需要使用水（处理废水是石油或沥青砂行业的一个大问题）。基本上所有的沥青都以一种非常干净的形式被回收。在用少量（冷）水除去残留的IL后，矿物（砂）也以未受污染的形式回收。初步但未发表的研究表明，这一过程对受石油污染的沙子和在“老化”过程中形成的风化和硬化的聚合碳氢化合物都同样有效。拟议的研究将建立适当的IL选择，共溶剂的比例（降低污泥和焦油的粘度，以促进分离），分离动力学等，以获得碳氢化合物与沙子的清洁分离，使前者处于适合输送到炼油厂的状态，后者可用于环境修复。为了确定大规模工艺所需的操作参数，将建立一个台式分离装置。虽然提出的工作是应用驱动的，但预计技术演示将导致新的基础科学，例如了解il，矿物和碳氢化合物之间的相互作用，以及这种相互作用如何影响相行为和分离过程。获得对这些过程的洞察形成了建议的智力价值。摘要：该奖项由快速研究响应计划资助。该研究旨在开发一种利用离子液体（ILs）从受污染的沙子中分离石油和焦油的工艺。墨西哥湾正在发生的灾难将对许多海滩造成灾难性的影响。此外，为了保护脆弱的湿地，正在修建沙堤和屏障。将会有大量受污染的沙子需要处理。最初的计划似乎包括在指定的垃圾填埋场和泻湖中储存。处理这些物质和清洗受污染的沙子既是一个紧迫的、即时的需要，也是一个需要及时响应的长期问题。在宾州州立大学最近的初步工作中，已经表明激光激光可以用来从焦油或油砂中分离沥青。如果这个项目成功并被采用，除了对海湾海滩的直接潜在影响外，还会产生更广泛的影响，因为从沙子或其他矿物质中分离石油不仅是一种新颖的、可能非常有效的环境灾难后清理沙子和土壤的方法，而且在其他领域也很重要。例如从犹他州的沥青砂中提取沥青和沥青；清洗在油井作业中获得的产品流中的一部分砂；从钻井泥浆中分离石油；以及处理炼油厂生产过程中产生的大量所谓的含油污泥。