Analysis of the energy intensity of soil remediation contaminated with petroleum products

Dispersed soils located in places of storage, transportation and processing of hydrocarbon materials are most often affected by oil products pollution. Various technologies for cleaning soils contaminated with petroleum products are widely discussed in the press, and many of them are often not without drawbacks. The article analyzes, from the point of view of energy intensity, the technology of cleaning sandy or similar soils by water washing, which has a number of advantages over other technologies primarily due to its technical accessibility. It is shown that the efficiency of washing contaminated sandy soil with water is determined by the amount of energy spent on the process. Currently, the greatest contribution of the required energy is made by heating the washing water to the maximum possible temperature combined with mechanical stirring. The calculation of the energy spent on the process of cleaning sandy soils was performed. The theoretical calculations are confirmed by experimental studies. Measurements of the fuel oil content in the sand before and after the experiments were performed using the gravimetric method according to federal environmental regulatory document HDPE F 16.1.41-04. Effective laboratory-scale ultrasonic cavitation in industrial conditions is still not applicable due to the lack of ultrasound sources of sufficient power. It is proposed to use hydrodynamic cavitation instead of ultrasonic and an example of using hydrodynamic cavitation for washing tar sands is given.

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