Global Journal of Energy Technology Research Updates, 2015, 1, 25-32 25 E-ISSN: 2409-5818/14 © 2014 Avanti Publishers Catalytic Cracking of Vacuum Gas Oil and Used Lubricating Oil on Oil Shale Ash Omar Al-Ayed * Al-Balqa Applied University, Faculty of Engineering Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Marka 11134 Amman Jordan Abstract: In this research, Vacuum Gas Oil and/or used lubricating oil is subjected to thermal cracking (pyrolysis) after impregnation on oil shale ash to obtain lighter molecular weight components. The spent oil shale of the thermal cracking step is subjected to further heat treatment in open air at 950 o C to react any organic compounds and mineral carbon to metal oxide. Used and/or fresh lubricating oils are impregnated on oil shale ash particles. Ash is soaked for 24 hours to allow absorption of the VGO or lubricating oils into the pores of the ash material. Oil shale ash which is known to contain several metal oxides such as CaO, SiO2, and lesser quantities of Fe2O3, Al2O3, K2O, Na2O, etc. possesses inherent catalytic nature to crack heavy hydrocarbons to produce lighter components. The absorbed Vacuum Gas Oil and/or lubricating oil inside the pores of the oil shale ash, is allowed to crack at 600 o C temperature. Cracking of VGO is conducted in a fixed bed reactor under nitrogen, steam environments. The weight ratio of the absorbed oil into the pores to oil shale ash is 1:1 ratio. The particle size was in the range of 20-25 mm. The liquid products indicated 20 vol% falls in the kerosene fraction specifications where as Approximately 50 vol% is diesel cut. Residue which boils at higher than 370 o C constituted about 30 vol% of the liquid distillate. Steam presence in the reaction media affected the composition of the product as measured in density increase. The sulfur content of the produce is found to be 0.75 wt%. Keywords: Cracking, lubricating oil, oil shale ash, fractionation, catalyst. INTRODUCTION Crude oils contain a large fraction of heavy products for which only few outlets exist. Indeed, the world demand for light and middle distillate continually increases, while at the same time, the available crude oil becomes heavier [1]. Therefore, upgrading of heavy crude oil fraction to more useful lighter products is indispensable. Hydrocracking and hydrotreating are the most important processes in a modern refinery to produce low sulfur diesel. The versatility and flexibility of the process makes it economically attractive to convert different types of feedstock into various yields including gas, LPG, naphtha, kerosene and diesel, leading to its widespread applications. Millions of barrels of waste automobile lubricating oil are generated every year in the world. Some of the technologies successfully applied the operation of regenerating plants and obtained the re-refined lubricating oil, which has equivalent quality to the new lubricating oil [2-4]. Kim et al. [5,6] investigated a novel technology for obtaining more valuable product oils from the waste lubricating oils. The waste lubricating oils were mixed with atmospheric distillation residuum *Address correspondence to this author at the Al-Balqa Applied University, Faculty of Engineering Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Marka 11134 Amman Jordan; Tel: +962 6 4790333; Fax: +962 6 4790350; E-mail; omar.alayed@bau.edu.jo, omar.al-ayed@jordanoilshale.net from crude oil and then were distilled under a vacuum. These methods of disposal are no longer practicable, because these treatment processes have several problems such as low yield, environmental pollution and sludge disposal. Therefore, it is necessary to seek a suitable method to solve the disposal problems. Many pyrolysis studies have been applied to organic materials such as coal, waste tires, waste plastics, waste woods, and oil shales [7-9]. Pyrolysis process has certain advantages over other treatment methods of waste disposal [7, 10, 11]. [Pyrolysis products such as gases, liquid oils and char can be used as fuels. Some studies have elucidated the mechanism of the degradation of organic materials. Ballice et al. [11] and Prakash [12] proposed a combined parallel and series reaction scheme for the pyrolysis mechanism of oil shale. Waste oils are an excellent example of a high-volume waste that can be processed into valuable products [13-14]. Pyrolysis may be one option for conversion of waste oils into a more useful product and has received special attention due to the multiphase product variation with different yields in solid, liquid and gas form depending on the process conditions. Large and increasing volumes of used lubricating oil are produced each year that, after use, are considered hazardous wastes. The used oils are disposed in many