Reclamation of Used Engine Oil Using Polymeric Flocculants

The objective of this research work was to develop a method for reclaiming the used engine oil which is time efficient, environment friendly and economical. The used oil was reclaimed using polymeric flocculants. Different cationic copolymers of polyamines like poly (adipic acid-co-epoxy propyldiethylene triamine) solution (polyamine 1), poly (dimethylamine-co-epichlorohydrin-co-ethylenediamine) solution (polyamine 2) and poly (dimethylamine-co-epichlorohydrin) solution (Polyamine 3) were used for reclaiming. The yield of oil reclaimed by using polymeric flocculants using polyamine 2 was 84% and the solvent recovered from reclaimed oil was 74%. It was observed that polymeric flocculants successfully removed the contaminants from the used engine oil. The physical and chemical properties like flash point, aniline point, color, total acid number (TAN), total base number (TBN), specific gravity and API gravity, refractive index (RI), kinematic viscosity and viscosity index of the reclaimed oil were characterized and compared with used engine oil and standard engine oil. The results indicated that all the impurities were removed from the used engine oil successfully using polymeric flocculants.