Experimental investigation of the sour-water treatment of Mozdouran layer wells using an ultrafiltration process

Document Type : Research paper

Authors

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Quchan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Quchan, Iran

2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Iranshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iranshahr, Iran

Abstract

While the petroleum industry plays a significant role in the global economy, it also produces a considerable amount of oily wastewater, posing environmental challenges. Petroleum wastewater contains diverse pollutants, including phenol, sulfide, ammonia, petroleum hydrocarbons, mercaptans, oil, and grease. Therefore, petroleum wastewater and oil-water emulsions are considered two of the main environmental pollutants. Various methods like gravity separation, sand filtration, chemical treatment, membrane filtration, biological treatment, advanced oxidation processes, and electrochemical treatment are employed to treat petroleum wastewater. Among the methods used to treat these contaminants, the use of polymeric ultrafiltration membranes has attracted significant attention due to reasons such as high separation efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and process simplicity. This research presents the results of experimental studies on the treatment of petroleum wastewater using the ultrafiltration process. For the experiments, a handmade modified polysulfone membrane was used as the ultrafiltration membrane, and a sample of sour water produced from Mozdouran layer wells was used as the feed. The effect of operational conditions, including the applied pressure difference across the membrane and the feed temperature, on the permeate flux and pollutant removal efficiency, was investigated. The results indicate that increasing the effective pressure difference and temperature increases the permeate flux. At a constant temperature of 25 °C, increasing the pressure from 3 to 5 bar results in an increase in COD and turbidity removal by 29% to 40% and 55.31% to 74.41%, respectively, while the removal efficiency of electrical conductivity and TDS decreases from 29.45% to 21.3% and from 28.2% to 22.3%, respectively. Additionally, the removal efficiency of H2S decreases from 86% to 55%.

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References

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Journal of Separation Science and Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 1
August 2024
Pages 49-60

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