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Bioremediation of Dissolved and Free Phase Oil in Wastewater from Equipment Maintenance Activities
Author(s) -
Guerin Turlough F.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
remediation journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.762
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1520-6831
pISSN - 1051-5658
DOI - 10.1002/rem.1008
Subject(s) - wastewater , environmental science , bioremediation , groundwater , total petroleum hydrocarbon , petroleum , sewage treatment , waste management , environmental engineering , contamination , soil water , soil contamination , chemistry , engineering , ecology , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , soil science , biology
Land treatment facilities can provide effective treatment of secondary oily wastewater from maintenanceoperations, particularly in arid climates. Soil and underlying groundwater from a land treatment facility, whichhas been operating for eight years, were analyzed to determine the effectiveness of using bioremediation for thetreatment of dissolved and free‐phase oil in maintenance wastewater. The study was conducted at a miningsite in Western Australia. The facility was capable of treating 140 kiloliters (kL) of oily wastewaterper day. The average petroleum hydrocarbon content of the wastewater was 2 percent weight per volume(w/v) based on data available for the first five years. The soil data indicate that the landtreatment process has been operating efficiently even at high wastewater loadings with maximum degradation ratesof 10–242 mg/kg per day. Based on the soil data, there is no evidence of accumulation of any metal orpolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) compounds. The land treatment facility has led to only lowlevels of TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons) contamination (<4 ppm) in the underlyinggroundwater. However, nitrate concentrations in the groundwater were shown to increase over the first five yearsof the facility's operation. This article reports and discusses the operational data from the landtreatment process, illustrating its effectiveness in treating oily wastewater. © 2001 John Wiley &Sons, Inc.