Petroleum storage and refining leads to the generation of undesirable hazardous oily sludge waste stream in considerable quantities. Oily sludge was subjected to hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), in an effort to remediate hazardous waste and enhance resource recovery. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry and ¹³C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance were used to determine hydrocarbon fingerprints for degradation, reaction pathways and mechanism analysis. The accumulation and transformation of heavy metals from the mobile, unstable, acid extractable and reducible fractions to immobilized relatively stable fraction was analyzed by European Communities Bureau of Reference technique. Linear alkanes with methyl substitutions such as pentadecane and hexadecane increased to 70 % at 250 °C with increasing reaction severities due to condensation and polymerization reactions. 95 % of carbons in the final hydrochar fall in the C₇-C₂₀ size range. The bioavailability, ecological risk and toxicity of hydrochar decreased significantly due to heavy metal immobilization and reached low potential risk category. Hydrothermal liquor (HTL) was found to contain various valuable chemical species and degradation products including diethyl phthalate and benzene dicarboxylic acid. The results indicate the suitability of HTC for metals immobilization, resource optimization and hydrocarbon recovery.

石油储存和精炼导致大量有害的含油污泥废物流的产生。对含油污泥进行水热碳化（HTC），以修复危险废物并提高资源回收率。气相色谱-质谱和¹³C 核磁共振用于确定碳氢化合物指纹，用于降解、反应途径和机理分析。欧洲共同体参考技术局分析了重金属从流动的、不稳定的、酸可提取和可还原的部分向固定的相对稳定部分的积累和转化。由于缩合和聚合反应，随着反应严重程度的增加，具有甲基取代基的直链烷烃如十五烷和十六烷在 250 °C 时增加到 70%。最终氢化碳中 95% 的碳落在 C ₇ -C _{20 中}尺寸范围。由于重金属固定化，水炭的生物利用度、生态风险和毒性显着降低，达到低潜在风险类别。发现水热液 (HTL) 含有各种有价值的化学物质和降解产物，包括邻苯二甲酸二乙酯和苯二甲酸。结果表明 HTC 适用于金属固定、资源优化和碳氢化合物回收。