UK-based Envorem has developed its new Greentech technology that uses a little-known property of water to rapidly and inexpensively process oil production sludges.
This technology, developed with assistance from the University of Brighton, uses very little energy to disassemble sludges, clean the solids and recover the entrained oil for recycling - all without using chemicals or generating emissions.
Crude and fuel oils contain contaminates comprising sediments and water that create an oily sludge.
“Today there are thousands of square kilometres of land polluted with crude oil sludge,” said Mark Batt-Rawden, CEO of Envorem.
“The issue until recently has not attracted the public’s attention but that is changing as the environmental impact of ongoing oil production and legacy pollution is increasingly appreciated.”
In Western Europe, sludges are usually thermally treated, either by incineration or thermal desorption.
Both are a costly and environmentally damaging operations. Incineration releases around 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of sludge and the latter consumes immense amounts of energy, usually burning the oil it recovers as fuel to reduce costs and generating similar emissions.
He added: “The oil industry has been seeking a solution for decades but nothing has ever proved effective and viable. It has taken us over 10 years to get this technology right and the solution we have developed pushes the boundaries of technology in a number of areas.”
Envorem’s core technology combines established techniques with hydraulic shock and cavitation, where bubbles are created by the vaporisation of water, a phenomenon copied from the natural world. Cavitation can be generated ultrasonically, electrically, or physically and is widely known as a parasitic effect that destroys propellers on ships and the impellers of pumps.
Envorem recently completed a highly successful pilot in Oman for their National Oil Company (PDO) to treat sludge and oil-contaminated soil. The pilot proved the technology generates a fraction of the emissions of thermal treatment and is both cheaper and faster.
Envorem develops innovative Greentech to clean oil sludges
