As mentioned earlier in this blog, PEAT advancing a plasma-arc project for a client in China to treat refinery sludge and petrochemical waste. The plasma-arc plasma gasification system construction is finished and the system is scheduled to continue its commissioning in May & June.

Unlike incineration, where combustion gases are treated at atmospheric pressure, the volume of syngas that is generated in a plasma-arc gasification system is significantly reduced. The smaller flue gas volumes also bring benefits in terms of the scale of downstream air pollution control equipment.

Here is a representative plasma-arc syngas composition for processing 60 kg/hr of petroleum sludge with the following chemical composition

(Carbon: 24.94%, Hydrogen: 3.89%, Nitrogen: 4.19%, Chlorine: 0.18%, Oxygen: 19.15%, Sulfur 0.86%, water 29.49%, inorganics 17.29%) in a plasma thermal destruction and recovery system.

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The refinery waste product contains primarily water, and smaller amounts of non-aqueous liquids and solids, both organic and inorganic. Due to environmental regulations, this industrial waste stream poses significant disposal problems for the oil refineries.

Additionally, an expected plasma waste-to-energy project with a large oil refinery site in India has eight crude storage tanks, each is shutdown every eight years for sludge cleaning. Typically 80-90% of the oil in the sludge can be recovered by agitation and recirculation. However the remaining 10% of residual sludge creates large disposal problems due to stringent regulatory requirements.

The plasma-arc waste-to-energy system is designed to convert via plasma gasification approximately 60 kilograms/hr of this refinery waste into syngas estimated to be almost 600,000 BTU/hr (150,000 kCal/hr).