Tertiary Filter Pilot Study for Mercury Removal from a Refinery Wastewater

CATEGORY: WASTEWATER TREATMENT
Tertiary Filter Pilot Study for Mercury Removal from a Refinery Wastewater

Type	Journal Article
Author	Jeff Allen
Author	Veronica Loete
URL	http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/wef/wefproc/2016/00002016/00000011/art00001
Volume	2016
Issue	11
Pages	148-164
Publication	Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation
Date	2016-01-01
Abstract	A petroleum refinery needed to reduce the mercury concentration in its effluent discharge to comply with new permit limits. Prior testing had indicated that the effluent mercury was primarily associated with effluent suspended solids. In order to evaluate tertiary filtration as a possible solution, researchers conducted pilot testing with disk filtration and conventional gravity granular media filtration technologies. The planned pilot testing duration was 6 months in order to assess the long-term variability of mercury concentrations in the filter effluent. Test results indicated that the disk filter could not remove sufficient suspended solids to achieve the target effluent mercury concentration. Granular media filtration was successfully demonstrated at pilot-scale to reliably achieve the effluent mercury target under a variety of media configurations.