Treatment of synthetic petroleum refinery wastewater in a continuous electro-oxidation process

CATEGORY: WASTEWATER TREATMENT
Desalination and Water Treatment, Volume 51, Issue 34-36, 2013, pages 6580-6591
Treatment of synthetic petroleum refinery wastewater in a continuous electro-oxidation process
Muhammad H. Al-Malack (a) & Mahmood Siddiqui (b)
a Civil Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia.
b Engineering and Technology Services, Khobar, 31952, Saudi Arabia.
Abstract
Researchers in Saudi Arabia studied a continuous electrochemical process for treatment of synthetic petroleum refinery wastewater. To simulate the soluble, immiscible, and colloidal phases, respectively, they added phenol, crude oil, and kaolin in concentrations typically found in a refinery wastewater.
They employed stainless steel (AISI 304) electrodes in the electrochemical cell, and an immersed ZW-1 ultrafiltration membrane module for solid–liquid separation. They studied various operational conditions by varying current density and contact time. They determined the optimum current density to be 30 mA cm⁻² with 20 min of contact time. Tap water having a conductivity of 5,000 μ ohm/cm was used as for the preparation of the synthetic wastewater. Experimental results revealed that high total dissolved solids (1,300 mg/L) in raw water produced a significant interference in degradation of phenol. 1However, a removal efficiency of 99 percent was achieved for turbidity, while oil was below the minimum detection limit of 1.4 mg/L for the EPA method 1664 used to detect oil in the treated samples.
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