International Science Community Association Research Journal of Engineering Sciences 2278 - 9472 3 6 2014 June 26 Studies on Reuse of Re-Refined Used Automotive Lubricating Oil 8 14 EN Shunmugesh K. 1 Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Trichy, INDIA Panneerselvam K. 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Viswajyothi College of Engineering and Technology, Vazhakulam, INDIA Pramod M. 3 Amal George 4 Shri Kannan C 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai – 638052, Tamilnadu, INDIA Mohan Kumar KS 2 Sakeer Hussain M 3 DeepaPriya N 4 Saravanan K. 5 > Research Paper 2014 4 10 2014 June 26 Today the used oil is discarded into the ground or landfills which neither protects the environment nor conserves it resource value. The used oil poured into the land penetrates the ground rapidly and causes serious ground water contamination. The burning of used oil in kilns and incinerators produces lots of ash and carcinogens causing environmental pollution. Refining of used oil can produce more valuable products and can prevent pollution. The refining of used lubricating oil minimizes the dependence on virgin base oil to produce fresh lubricating oil. The objective of re-refining is to remove the degraded additives and contaminants and to restore the properties of the oil identical to the standards provided by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers). The available method for re-refining is the acid clay treatment process. It involves the treatment of used oil with strong acids followed by treatment with clay. This method produces acid sludge and causes numerous environmental problems. Also the quality of re-refined oil is very low. This method cannot be used due to the stringent pollution control board norms. The present study focuses on the development of an alternative method that is ecofriendly and produces good quality refined oil. The used oil is collected from automobile service stations and the oil is subjected to dehydration, vacuum distillation followed by solvent extraction. The solvent used in solvent extraction is recovered by atmospheric distillation. Finally, additives are added to the re-refined oil. The properties of lubricating oil like density, viscosity, viscosity index, flash point, fire point, pour point, cloud pointand total acid number were determined and compared with the standards provided by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Copyright@ International Science Community Association