Analysis of the Percolation Behavior of Petroleum Derivatives in Sandy Soil of the Alagoas Coast
Percolation of petroleum derivatives, soil characterization and Statistical Analysis.
Oil and its derivatives are applied in different ways in today's society and its commercialization, handling and disposal have raised concerns regarding the potential for contamination in soils and groundwater in cases of spillage. Thus, this present work carried out physical tests of the spillage of automotive lubricating oils evaluating the effect of viscosity (0w20 – 47.6 cSt, 5w30 – 64 cSt and 20w50 – 134.7cSt) and granulometry in sandy media with different particle sizes (Praia do Saco – 3.0630 in diameter, Cruz das Almas – 5.0644 in diameter and Barra de São Miguel – 5.4680 in diameter). In the verification of the influence of the physicochemical characteristics of the sands, the values of the Sauter diameters, the distribution of the sizes of the sediments and the values of the total saturation (100%) of water in all analyzed conditions were determined. As for the oils, the viscosity, density and pour point values were determined. Thus, the results showed that after determining the physicochemical characteristics of the sands and oils applied in bench tests, the viscosity of the oils and the granulometry of the sands influence the percolation behavior. This influence was determined by the behavior of oil percolation in sandy media, as for the analysis with the sand of Saco beach (granulometry 3.0630) and with the automotive lubricating oils (0w20, 5w30 and 20w50) the radial percolation was more significant for the oil with higher density (20w50 - 134.7cSt) and in the axial percolation the behavior was more present for the oil with lower viscosity (0w20 - 47.6 cSt). That is, for the same particle size, radial flow increases with increasing viscosity and axial flow with lower viscosity. Furthermore, it was also found that for the same oil (maintained viscosity) the radial flow is more expressive in finer particle sizes and the axial flow in larger particle sizes. This work aims to evaluate the behavior of percolation of petroleum derivatives in sandy environments of the Alagoas coast and perform the same bench tests in computational simulation using Ansy software.