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Membrane treatment of oily wastewater from refinery processes
Author(s) -
Madaeni S. S.,
Gheshlaghi A.,
Rekabdar F.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.1619
Subject(s) - microfiltration , ultrafiltration (renal) , wastewater , filtration (mathematics) , oil refinery , refinery , cross flow filtration , membrane technology , membrane , waste management , effluent , produced water , sewage treatment , pulp and paper industry , emulsion , chemistry , environmental science , chromatography , environmental engineering , engineering , organic chemistry , biochemistry , statistics , mathematics
Oily wastewater is produced in oil refining processes. This waste is usually treated by a number of physical, chemical, and biological techniques in water treatment units of oil refinery before being disposed in environment or reused as agricultural water. One of the treatment techniques for oil separation from wastewater is membrane filtration. This paper presents the performances of hydrophilic microfiltration (MF GRM) and ultrafiltration (UF GRM) polymeric membranes challenged with synthetic feed (gas oil dispersed in water) and oily wastewater effluent of American Petroleum Institute unit in refinery. A comparison was carried out under optimum conditions and in cross‐flow mode in laboratory scale. The effects of operating parameters (i.e. pressure and cross‐flow velocity) on flux and rejection were elucidated. The flux of MF GRM membrane for real feed within the first 2 h of filtration was low compared with synthetic feed because of the presence of solid and colloidal particles in the real feed. The oil rejection (around 99%) for synthetic feed was higher compared with real feed. Similar trend was found for both UF GRM and MF GRM membranes. © 2012 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.