Affiliations 

  • 1 International Islamic University Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

This paper addresses the treatment of waste engine oils (WEO) by acid/clay refining method using glacial acetic acid. An optimization of the process parameters in terms of settling time, stirring speed and mixing temperature for treating the WEO was performed using Response Surface Methodology to improve the quality of treated lubricating oil. The quality of the treated WEO (Castrol brand) was evaluated in terms of viscosity index and flash point value. The treated fuel quality is found to have about 95% similarity to the fresh oil used as a standard at the settling time of 24 hours, temperature of 50 °C and mixing speed of 150 rpm. Analysis of variances (ANOVA) showed that settling time plays the most significant parameters of the process followed by the mixing temperature. Solid contaminants which were collected after the treatment were analyzed using SEM-EDS. They contained rough heteregenous shaped particles with elements such as carbon (97%), calcium (1.12%), zinc (0.74%), sulphur (0.73%) and phosphorus (0.29%). Then, four different brands of WEO (Liqui Moly, Castrol, Shell and Pennzoil) were treated at the optimized conditions to determine the feasibility of the method to treat any brands of WEO. It can be concluded that the optimized treatement method is suitable to treat most of WEO. The findings of this study provide the information on the best process condition for treating WEO as well as the solid contaminants present in it.