Evaluación de diferentes tratamientos físicos y químicos para reducir el contenido de humedad en los lodos provenientes de la PTAR de la industria envasadora de gas domésticos, Eni Ecuador, en la Planta Pifo

Abstract

The company Eni Ecuador S.A. operates in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) commercialization market, in the domestic, industrial and commercial sectors. This company has four LPG packaging plants, which are located in Pifo, Ibarra, Ambato and Isidro Ayora, the largest of these being the Pifo plant. The Pifo plant complies with all current environmental regulations of both the Ministry of the Environment of Ecuador and the ISO regulations that the company has (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, among others) (ENI , 2019), due to this the continuous improvement of the System Environmental Management is essential, that is why this research is focused on optimizing resources, it will reduce the cost of the final treatment of the sludge generated in the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) of the Pifo plant, through the dehydration of the same to achieve a decrease in its volume and total weight which will also allow for greater ease of transport. Two physical and one chemical treatment were evaluated for the dehydration of the sludge produced in the WWTP. The physical treatments analyzed were solar drying or by natural convection and filtration with layers of geotextile and gravel. For the chemist, the sludge was conditioned with calcium hydroxide CaO, commonly known as quicklime, prior to drying by natural convection, as was the first mentioned physical treatment. In the present investigation, the study variable was the amount of moisture present in the sludge at the end of the experimentation phase. By means of a statistical analysis, the treatment with the greatest reduction in moisture content was determined. A socio-economic analysis was carried out for its use and, finally, its full-scale model was dimensioned in AutoCAD.