How to solve the crude oil sludge in crude oil tank?

Answer 1

There are a couple of things you can do...

1) Reactive approach: clean the darn thing out with a good solvent like toluene. After emptying the liquid, dissolve the sludge with toluene by letting it sit for a day and then pumping this off.

2) Proactive approach: after doing the reactive approach a few times you are frustrated and want something better. Good. The big boys use sparging to prevent sludge in the first place. Basically you bubble nitrogen or CO2 into the tank to keep it stirred up. Sparging also separates the water and oil fractions, which is nice if you have to get rid of water and silt.