SUPERCRITICAL WATER GASIFICATION AND CATALYTIC SUPERCRITICAL WATER GASIFICATION OF PETROCHEMICAL SLUDGE

The objective of this work was to study supercritical water gasification (SWG) and catalytic supercritical water gasification (CSWG) for treating petrochemical sludge. Experiments were performed in a 0.6-1 batch reactor at 520-580 degrees C. The influence of main parameters, including temperature, pressure, initial chemical oxygen demand (COD) and catalyst addition, on the gasification process was discussed. The experiment results show that temperature is the key factor on petrochemical sludge gasification. Higher temperature and pressure are in favour of petrochemical sludge gasification. A higher amount of hydrogen production can be gained using the SWG process under the following conditions: temperature 580 degrees C, pressure 27 MPa and initial chemical oxygen demand (COD) 7000 mg/l. Homogenous catalyst, KOH showed good catalytic activity for treating petrochemical sludge. The max H-2 yield for both SWG and CSWG is 6 and 7.5 mol/kg, respectively. The results showed that CSWG is a more effective and feasible process for hydrogen production from petrochemical sludge.