Navigating Waste Oil Re-refinery Paths with Consideration of Uncertainty: A Sequential Optimization Approach

Circular economy (CE) appears to be a plausible strategy to reduce emissions and enhance sustainability for the heavy-emitting sector including the oil and gas sector. This works explores the feasibility of waste oil (WO) re-refinery pathways. Given that the moisture content of the WO plays an important role in the production cost and product quality, the impact of the moisture content variation is considered in this work. The influence of feed uncertainty on the decision-making model is modelling through a sequential optimization approach by employing Aspen HYSYS and Monte-Carlo simulation to synthesize the optimal re-refining solution in terms of (i) economic domain, (ii) environmental domain, and (iii) product quality domain. This work is essentially a step-by-step guide that helps project engineers in making informed decisions in selecting and designing the waste oil re-refinery facilities.