Waste Not, Want Not
As recently touched upon in these pages, the base oil and lubricants industry has a growing responsibility for its products from the cradle to the grave. Used lubricating oil comprises the largest single source of hazardous liquid waste in the world, and its safe disposal or, better still its reuse, is an economic and environmental opportunity not to be missed, thinks the European Waste Oil Rerefining Industry Association, or GEIR.
Most collected waste oil is incinerated to generate electricity, but the way forward is recycling – or rather rerefining – back into base oils, the association says. And according to the most recent statistics compiled by GEIR, there is more than 1.22 million metric tons of base oil rerefining capacity throughout Europe.
Around 2.4 million metric tons of collectable waste oil is produced in Europe yearly, of which 70 percent, or 1.68 million metric tons, is automotive, according to a report from the Technical Committee of Petroleum Additive Manufacturers in Europe (ATC) in August 2016. The average collection rate across the bloc was 75 percent, with some countries outperforming others, the report found. The United Kingdom led at 86 percent and Greece was last at 36 percent. However, of the oil that the Greeks do collect, around 85 percent was rerefined.
Since 2010, the collection and disposal of all waste in Europe has been governed by the Waste Framework Directive, which advises waste oils be treated in accordance with a waste management hierarchy that places prevention of use at the top, followed by preparing for reuse, recycling, recovery and lastly disposal. This means current EU policy prioritizes the regeneration of waste through rerefining where viable, but there are still attractive tax breaks for power producers that incinerate waste oil.
GEIR pointed out in a 2016 position paper on the EU directive that the application of the hierarchy is inconsistent across member states and urges the implementation of a bloc-wide target of 95 percent collection of waste oils of which at least 60 percent would be rerefined by 2020. By 2025, GEIR recommends these should be 100 percent collection and 85 percent rerefinement.
GEIR argues that higher targets would greatly contribute to European Union carbon dioxide reduction. Rerefining technologies, the association claims, produce up to 50 percent less carbon dioxide per ton of base oil produced than virgin oil refining. Greater rates of collection and rerefining would also cut back on illegal dumping of waste oil, which has the potential to contaminate millions of liters of water in aquifers and reservoirs.
Once waste oil is collected, rerefining begins with the separation of fuels and other lighter components, hydrotreating to remove residual polymers and other chemical compounds and then fractionating to separate the oil into different grades. The result is base oils that can meet performance qualities of corresponding grades of virgin base oils.