The Separation of Hydrocarbons from Contaminated Sand Using Ionic Liquids

技术摘要：该奖项由快速研究反应计划资助。该研究旨在开发一种使用离子液体（IL）从污染砂中分离油和焦油的方法。墨西哥湾正在发生的灾难将对许多海滩产生灾难性的影响。此外，正在修建沙堤和屏障，以保护脆弱的湿地。将有大量受污染的沙子需要处理。初步计划似乎涉及在指定的垃圾填埋场和泻湖储存。处理这种材料和清洁受污染的沙子既是一个紧迫的、直接的需求，也是一个需要及时响应的长期问题。在宾夕法尼亚州立大学的初步工作中，最近已经表明离子液体可以用于从焦油或油砂中分离沥青。沥青是一种复杂的材料，由大小从小到聚合的分子组成。被冲到海滩上的石油通常已经失去了其“轻”或挥发性部分，留下了主要由低聚和聚合碳氢化合物组成的重油或焦油球的污泥。用于从砂中分离油、沥青或焦油的现有方法是昂贵的或环境上具有挑战性的（例如，用于从加拿大焦油砂中获得沥青的热水或温水方法）。沥青可以单独使用IL或与非极性溶剂结合使用从焦油砂中提取。分离在室温下进行，并且在初始分离过程中不需要使用水（废工艺水的处理在石油或焦油砂工业中是一个大问题）。基本上所有的沥青都以非常干净的形式回收。在用少量（冷）水去除残留的IL之后，矿物（砂）也以未污染的形式被回收。初步但未发表的工作表明，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同样有效。拟议的研究将确定IL的适当选择、共溶剂的比例（以降低污泥和焦油的粘度以促进分离）、分离动力学等，为了从沙子中清洁地分离碳氢化合物，必须进行必要的清洁，使前者处于适合于输送到炼油厂的状态，而后者可用于环境补救。将建造一个台式分离装置，以确定大规模工艺所需的操作参数。 虽然拟议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，例如对离子液体，矿物和碳氢化合物之间相互作用的理解，以及这如何影响相行为和分离过程。获得对这些过程的洞察力形成了该提案的智力价值。非技术摘要：该奖项由快速研究反应计划资助。该研究旨在开发一种使用离子液体（IL）从污染砂中分离油和焦油的方法。墨西哥湾正在发生的灾难将对许多海滩产生灾难性的影响。此外，正在修建沙堤和屏障，以保护脆弱的湿地。将有大量受污染的沙子需要处理。初步计划似乎涉及在指定的垃圾填埋场和泻湖储存。处理这些材料和清理受污染的沙子既是一个紧迫的、直接的需求，也是一个需要及时应对的长期问题。在宾夕法尼亚州立大学最近的初步工作中，已经表明IL可以用于从焦油或油砂中分离沥青。 如果这一项目获得成功和通过，除了对海湾海滩的直接潜在影响外，还将产生更广泛的影响，因为从沙子或其他矿物中分离石油不仅是一种在环境灾难后清洁沙子和土壤的新颖和潜在的极其有效的方法，而且在其他领域也很重要。 这些技术的例子包括从犹他州焦油砂中提取沥青和柏油;清洗油井作业中获得的产品流的一部分砂;从钻井泥浆中分离油;以及处理炼油厂作业中产生的大量所谓含油污泥。

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.