Improving properties of bilge water’s treatment sludge in a port reception facility by novel continuous ultrasonic reactor

ABSTRACT

The main problem faced by facilities dealing with bilge water treatment is the generation of a high sludge amount, which has significant contents of oil and hazardous substances. The presence of petroleum and petroleum-derived organic oil, which ranges from 10 to 20% in bilge water with varying characteristics not only poses challenges in treating the bilge water but also complicates the management of the bilge water treatment sludge. Hence, this study aims to improve the characteristics of treatment sludge generated after bilge water treatment at one of Turkey’s largest port waste reception facilities (PRF), consisting of a combined process involving ultrasound and a filter press. When the filter press was used to reduce the water content in the sludge cake to approximately 65%, a similar water content of about 65% was achieved by employing ultrasound as a pre-treatment, even when the initial sludge contained 95–98% water. Additionally, the application of ultrasound before the filter press did not have a significant impact on the values of total organic carbon (TOC) and loss on ignition (LOI). However, the value of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) decreased by 45% when subjected to sonication for 60 minutes at a density of 100 W/L. Furthermore, when ultrasound was applied as a pre-treatment, an increase in the sonication duration resulted in improvements of 10% and 22% in the parameters of total dissolved solids (TDS) and chloride, respectively, which were influenced by different levels of ultrasonic power. Briefly, such research has been novelly conducted on the management of bilge water treatment sludge. Ultrasound, which is often preferred in sludge dewatering applications, was applied to this type of sludge for the first time, and the studies were conducted in a pilot-scale facility and a real PRF field. In conclusion, the partially promising results of this study will provide a new alternative and a pioneering guide for the treatment of bilge water sludge.

KEYWORDS:

• Port waste reception facilities
• bilge water
• treatment sludges
• sludge stabilization
• dewatering
• ultrasound

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank İSTAÇ Inc., Marine Services Manager Alper AYAR, facility chief Hayrettin GÜROVA, especially Industrial Waste Manager Bekir TOMBUL and Sultan Mehmet ER, Laboratory Chief Şafak ASLAN, Technician Enver TÜĞMEN and all co-workers of the plant for supplying the physical equipment and laboratory conditions in this study. The authors are also grateful to Prof. Nezih Kamil SALİHOĞLU from Bursa Uludağ University, and Prof. Ahmet KARAGÜNDÜZ from Gebze Technical University for their valuable insights and equipment support. This thesis study was supported by Bursa Uludağ University Scientific Research Projects (BAP) Fund within the scope of project number FDK-2022-833. We would also like to thank Bursa Uludağ University Scientific Research Projects Department.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Author contributions

Nurullah Özdoğan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Resources, Writing – Original Draft. Ahmed M. Albahnasawi: Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization. Murat Eyvaz: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft. Ebubekir Yüksel: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Funding acquisition. Fatma Olcay Topaç: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi [FDK-2022-833].

Notes on contributors

Nurullah Özdoğan

MSc. Nurullah Özdoğan works as a chemist at the İSTAC port waste reception facility. Özdoğan, who has nearly 20 years of experience in the analysis and disposal of different types of ship waste, is also about to complete his doctoral study on the management of bilge water treatment sludge.

Ahmed M. Albahnasawi

Dr. Ahmed M. Albahnasawi is a water and environmental engineer with research experience in water and wastewater treatments. He gained considerable experience working in the laboratory and is familiar with specific micropollutant analytical instruments, such as (GC-MS/MS, LC-MS/MS, and (waste)water quality characterization analysis.

Murat Eyvaz

Dr. Murat Eyvaz is an associate professor in the Environmental Engineering Department at Gebze Technical University, Turkey. His research interests include applications in water and wastewater treatment facilities and spectrophotometric and chromatographic analyses. Dr. Eyvaz serves as an editor for 50 journals and a reviewer for 120 journals. He holds four patents on wastewater treatment systems.

Ebubekir Yüksel

Prof. Ebubekir Yüksel is a faculty member of the Environmental Engineering Department at Gebze Technical University. His research interests are applications in water and wastewater treatment facilities, watershed management, flood control, deep-sea discharges, membrane processes, and geographic information systems. He has co-authored numerous journal articles and conference papers and has participated in many national projects.

Fatma Olcay Topaç

Prof. Fatma Olcay Topaç is a faculty member of the Environmental Engineering Department at Bursa Uludağ University. Her research interests are ecology and pollution, solid waste engineering and management, contaminated sites and remediation, pollution prevention and waste reduction, and soil and groundwater pollution and control. She has co-authored numerous journal articles and conference papers and has participated in many national projects.