Analysis of Pollutants for the Sustainable Reuse of Waste Lubricant Oils

Rosa Vitiello (), Francesco Taddeo (), Riccardo Tesser, Gabriella Di Natale, Marco Trifuoggi, Mariano Baldoni and Martino Di Serio
Additional contact information
Rosa Vitiello: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy
Francesco Taddeo: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy
Riccardo Tesser: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy
Gabriella Di Natale: CeSMA—Centre of Meteorologic and Avanced Technology Services, University of Naples Federico II, 80146 Naples, Italy
Marco Trifuoggi: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy
Mariano Baldoni: Consorzio Obbligatorio Nazionale Oli Usati (CONOU), 00154 Rome, Italy
Martino Di Serio: Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126 Naples, Italy

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: Nowadays, attention to the environment is increasingly emphasized by the scientific community. Different measures have been adopted to ensure a lower environmental impact and increase the sustainability of industrial processes. This work fits well with these principles, as it focuses on the determination of pollutants in waste lubricating oils derived from the industrial and automotive sectors to quantify their concentration for potential recovery and subsequent reuse. Modern waste oils, especially those derived from industrial processes, contain pollutants and metals (most importantly, silicon). It is of utmost importance to determine the silicon content in the collected waste oils to verify the possibility of recycling them since high concentrations can badly affect the industrial operations in which they can be involved. One of the most applied analytic methods for controlling the content of metals is the ASTM D5185-18, Standard Test Method for Multielement Determination of Used and Unused Lubricating Oils and Base Oils by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES). However, this method was certified for 50 mg/kg of maximum silicon content. To extend this range, CONOU, because of its duty to monitor waste oil quality, organized an interlaboratory comparison to verify the applicability of ASTM D5185-18 and also to samples of used oils containing higher concentrations of silicon. This work describes the details of the employed methodology and the results of the interlaboratory comparison that showed the applicability of ASTM D5185-18 also to samples containing silicon concentrations higher than 1000 ppm.

Keywords: sustainable oils; recycling; pollutants; environmentally friendly oils; silicon determination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2439/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2439/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:6:p:2439-:d:1357489

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().