Waste lubricant collection

There are many companies offering a collection service for the disposal of waste lubricating oil. The three main methods employed are ... 

In terms of the lubricant, (i) is largely a matter for the equipment designer and builder. The specialist lubricant company is affected by (iii) and can affect (ii). The collection and treatment of waste lubricants will now be described and followed by consideration of the environmental impact of lubricants. Einally, the results of recent research into the impact of lost or consumed automotive engine oils will be described. 

The EU legislation, as The Waste Oil Directive [4], requires that the use of collected waste lubricants should be reclaimed as the major priority, rather than be burned as fuel. The withdrawal of the 40/tonne subsidy changed the emphasis towards reclamation and recycling. With modern reclamation plants and a shortage of base stocks as crude oil and fuel prices continue their inexorable rise due to increasing demands this requirement continues to meet commercial demands. There is however a strong possibility that the Waste Oil Directive may be repealed, and the choice of whether to reclaim the oil is expected to revert to individual... 

Waste oil generated from lubricants and hydraulic fluids is one of the more commonly recycled materials. A significant fraction of the approximately 4 billion liters of waste oil produced annually in the United States is burned as fuel, much is recycled, and lesser quantities are disposed of as waste. The collection, recycling, treatment, and disposal of waste oil are all complicated by the fact that it comes from diverse, widely dispersed sources and contains several classes of potentially hazardous contaminants. These are divided between organic constituents (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons) and inorganic constituents (aluminum, chromium, and iron from wear of metal parts barium and zinc from oil additives and formerly lead from leaded gasoline). 

Used oil disposal trends include waste minimisation such as by reclaiming used fluid on site, as well as recycling of mineral oil lubricants instead of disposing by incineration. The recycling effort involves a system where spent mineral oils are collected then shipped to specialty refineries where the materials are distilled, hydrofinished, and re-refined into fresh base stocks. These re-refined materials are virtually identical to virgin feedstocks. 

EC policy is that waste oils from use as lubricants should be recycled or used as fuel as far as possible. Some EC countries have a more regulated organizational framework for collection and... 

Wet precipitators are used where aerosol mixtures must be separated with a high efficiency from waste air, circulating air or process gas. These will have drip trays below the collection plates. A typical plant-scale horizontal wet electrostatic precipitator is shown in Figure 7.20, for which applications include tar separation from coke-oven gas, separation of recondensed lubricant and resin vapours, paints mist and oil mist. 

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