Economic evaluation of recycling acidic sludge project of reprocessing industries to bitumen (A case study)

• The acidic sludge contains unsaturated compounds which are non-polar and asphaltene.
• Acidic sludge is a by-product of used motor-oil reprocessing industries as a hazardous waste material.
• It was found that bitumen 54/130 from acidic sludge recycling in the best conditions.
• The studies of technical and economical view-point were indicated the economic success of this project.

Reprocessing operation of used motor oil encompasses the dewatering, heating and distillation processes. This procedure yields about 15 barrels of AS per 100 barrels of used motor oil as hazardous waste material, which can be effectively recycled. Experimentally present study involved mixing AS samples and additives together using a high shear mixer in order to achieve to the main objective of study that was economic evaluation of recycling the AS to bitumen. The products so obtained were evaluated using performance tests and in correlation with economical indices enacted in an industry. The results indicated that the bitumen produced, had the highest softening point temperature with a penetration degree of 54/130. The products were also found to be useful in building and road construction in different regions of Iran and the technical and economical view-point evaluation had shown the indices values such as value-added percent, profit, annual income, breakeven point, value-added and output value to be 68.2%, $249552, $248370, $131, $285134 and $132521 respectively. A low breakeven point about 14.7% and the time of return on investment about 1.05 (13 months) were indicative of the economic success of this project.

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