Adnan Al-Harahsheh

Solvation of Jordanian Oil Shale Using Different Organic Solvents by Continuous Contact Mixing

Continuous contact mixing was used to examine solvation of organic matter found in Jordanian oil shale. Different types of organic solvents as well as their mixtures were examined under different operating conditions. The solvation of organic matter was found to increase with the increase of mixing time and temperature, and to decrease with the increase of grain size and oil shale/solvent weight ratio. These results explain the role of mass transfer and equilibrium effects on the solvation process. The effect of structure, molecular weight, and polarity of solvents and their mixtures showed nonlinear trends on organic matter solvation. Solvation was enhanced significantly upon using sulfur containing solvents like dimethyl sulfoxide.

Phosphate removal from aqueous solutions by using natural Jordanian zeolitic tuff

In this study, a naturally occurring zeolitic tuff located in Jordan was investigated as a potential adsorbent for phosphate removal from aqueous solution. Adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics of phosphate adsorption under different temperatures were studied. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model adequately fitted the collected experimental data under different initial ion concentrations. The Langmuir model is found to be successfully fitting the experimental data. Thermodynamic parameters such as Gibbss free energy change, standard enthalpy change, and entropy change were evaluated and the results indicated that the sorption process is spontaneous, exothermic with small degree of randomness during the sorption process.

Potential Impacts on Surface Water Quality from the Utilization of Oil Shale at Lajjoun Area/Southern Jordan Using Geographic Information Systems and Leachability Tests

Abstract Surface water is one of the major water resources for drinking and agricultural purposes in Jordan. It is the largest contributor to the irrigation sector and it is the second largest source for domestic consumption. Jordan also has a huge amount of oil shale that exists in the Southern and Eastern parts of the country. It is estimated that Jordan has a reserve of 50 billion tons of oil shale. The oil shale deposits in these locations are shallow and near the surface and can be utilized by an open cut mining method. The ash is considered one of the most important factors in selecting suitable and more economical utilization technology for Jordanian oil shale. Oil shale ash is considered one of the main environmental challenges and barriers, which stand in the way of developing oil shale industry in Jordan. The main concern in this case is that ash might reach nearby surface water resources in the area. This study aimed to evaluate the risk of pollution of surface water resources in Lajjoun area/Southern Jordan as a result of oil shale development. It assessed the potential impacts on surface water quality from the utilization of oil shale using geographic information systems and leachability tests conducted on oil shale ash that might result from two possible utilizations of oil shale; producing electricity through direct burning of oil shale and extracting oil from oil shale. It was found that surface water resources in the Lajjoun area have a medium-low to high susceptibility to pollution, and the flow direction from the Lajjoun area could reach Al-Mujib dam in 4 h. Also, the leachability tests showed that there will be substantial amounts of Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl, SO4, HCO3, Fe, Cr, Cd, and Pb as possible leachates to surface water from both types of oil shale utilizations: oil extract and electricity generation.

Extracting oil from used auto tires at low temperature after chemical treatment

This study presents an alternative tactic to pyrolysis of auto tires avoiding the use of high temperature and increasing the yield of oil produced. It depends on a simple chemical treatment of auto tires with sodium carbonate at low temperature (50°C) followed by solvent extraction. This treatment produced two folds of the yield that can be obtained using normal solvent extraction. The experimental results suggests that sodium carbonate is responsible for breakage of CS bond in the main structure of auto tires making solvent extraction easier. Additionally, the sulphur content of the extracted oil using the sodium carbonate treatment is reduced significantly (by about 28%) making the product more favorable energy/fuel source. This technique allows about 30wt.% of oil to be extracted from the used auto tires at 50°C under atmospheric pressure resulted from the breakage of the sulphur cross-linking by the sodium carbonate.

Removal of Sulfur Dioxide by a Slurry of Jordanian Oil Shale Ash

Abstract This work presents a study on the capacity of oil shale ash to remove sulphur dioxide from air streams before escaping into the atmosphere. Slurries of different concentrations of this ash showed an uptake capacity of 4 × 10−4 mol SO2/g ash obtained after 250 sec. This value increases with the increase of solution pH, temperature, and ash concentration, and decreases the ash particle size. The process of uptake seems to be coupled with both adsorption of SO3 2− on the surface of metal oxides and reaction with alkali and alkali earth metal hydroxides.