2009 International Conference on Energy and Environment Technology

Pilot Test of Oily Wastewater Treatment Facility with New Ceramics

Qian Zhang
School of Civil Engineering Wuhan University Wuhan, China vicki8346@163.com
AbstractThe operational principles of oily wastewater treatment facility with modified ceramics and the pilot test in Jianghan oil field have been discussed. The results on the spot show that, by adopting new environmental modified ceramics, the disposal effect of the oily wastewater treatment facility is quite remarkable. The average turbidity of effluent is less than 1mg/L, the oil concentration is less than 5mg/L and the concentration of Fe is less than 0.5mg/L, which meet the A1 standard of oily re-injected water. Therefore, the facility will produce great economical, social and environmental benefits to community. Keywords-Oily wastewater;new environmental mediums; oily wastewater treatment facility ceramic

Meng Li
School of Civil Engineering & Architecture Wuhan University of Technology Wuhan, China

II. A.

EXPERIMENTAL MATERIAL

I.

INTRODUCTION

Recently, most oil fields are at the stage of the middle and latter development, and there is a sharp decline of reservoir pressure. Re-injection is considered as an important way to maintain the reservoir pressure. The water content of oil is about 70% to 80%, some even as high as 90%, and it comes to a large amount of oily wastewater a day. If the oily wastewater discharges directly without treatment, it may cause soil and water pollution, and in some cases lead to fire accidents, which threat the safety of the public and harm to the interests of oil fields. If it is disposed and re-injected, it can not only meet the need of increasingly re-injected water in the oil exploitation, but also save water resource and reduce environmental pollution, which brings economic benefits to oil fields and helps to the sustainable development of them. According to the People's Republic of China Oil and Gas Industry Standard SY/T5329-94: as to the A1 standard of re-injection, the oil content is less than 5.0mg/L, suspended solid content is less than 1mg/L, the total iron content is less than 0.5mg/L, and pH is between 6.5 to 7.5, which advance high requirement to the quality of reinjection [1] . The single process of treatment used by oil fields and the deteriorated quality of effluent make the effluent hard to achieve the water quality requirements of re-injected water, which does not go far to meet the need of the development of oil fields. In the condition of better effect of the simulated experiments in lab, a new kind of oily wastewater facility carried on the vehicle is adopted for oil-water separation test in Jianghan oil field and obtains great effect.

Experimental material The new type of ceramic filter, produced by Shandong Aluminum Company, uses red mud, fly ash, coal gangue and other solid waste mixing with pore-forming agent, forming and sintering additive auxiliaries as ball, drying and firing. It is a kind of spherical particles with uniform particle size, reddish-brown appearance, porous surface and internal micro-crossing network, which make the ceramic medium has a strong adsorption. Compared with traditional quartz sand and walnut shells, the new ceramic medium has more outstanding performance, such as longer filter cycle, lower effluent turbidity, stronger deposit capability and shorter maturity and so on[2]. In this oily wastewater treatment facility, the surface modified lipophile ceramic mediums are adopted in the multi-filteration equipment and the surface modified oil-proof ceramic mediums are used in the coalescence equipment respectively. B. Modification methods The high-hydrogen silicone oil and non-benzene ecocoating are chosen to modify the surface of porous ceramic filter mediums so that they can have low surface energy and high surface energy to increase the surface lipophobic and oleophobic properties. The modification processes are shown as Fig.1 and Fig.2. C. Analysis of deoiling performance Taking petrochemical wastewater (oil concentration is 200.56mg/L) as the raw water, 50mL and 100mL of acid burette as the simulated filter candle, filter height as 450mm, and velocity of lipophile filter mediums as 15m/h and 5m/h to proceed filter test. Measure the oil concentration of effluent after running 30mins, and the oil concentration is measured with infrared oil instrument. The oil removal rate is shown as table. As is shown in table, the modified filter medium have a nice performance of removing oil, and the oil removal rate increases 30%. III. OUTLINE OF TECHNIQUE The selection of method and process of oily wastewater treatment is influenced by various factors, such as component of wastewater, existence form of oil, depth of recycle, and way of discharge, etc. In accordance with the technique demand, the oily wastewater treatment facility consists of clarification equipment, coalescence equipment
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978-0-7695-3819-8/09 $26.00 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICEET.2009.399

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and multi-filtration equipment. The designed scale of the facility is 500t/d. The diameter and the height of each equipment are between 1.6m to 2.5m and 1.8m to 2.3m respectively. A. Coagulation equipment According to the theory of contact coagulation, the oily wastewater with higher concentration enters to the equipment from the bottom after input coagulant. The influent part has a smaller cross section and higher velocity with intense rotation. As the constantly expanding of the cross section, the velocity slows. In sedimentation area, the dense floc with larger size can be removed by sedimentation, while the smaller sized floc within oily particles enter to the clarify area with sloped pipes. As the increase of the cross section, finally, the flow is stabilized, the suspended solid float to the surface and cleaned water discharge from the upper section of the equipment. B.

Using hermetic pressed filtration, the equipment can ensure enough water pressure IV. RESULTS OF OPERATION AND DISCUSSION The oily wastewater treatment facility preceded the oily wastewater test in old two station 22group of Jianghan oil field plant. The existing oily wastewater treatment process in the station is as follows: three-phase separator 100m3/200m3 buffer canwalnut shell medium filter injection canhigh-pressure pump for re-injection. During the test, the effluent of buffer can is led to the coagulation equipment after input PAC and liquid alkali, then following the combinatorial schedule to treat wastewater. Finally, the effluent enters to the injection can and re-injects by highpressure pump. The pilot test mainly monitors the influent and effluent indicators, such as oil and total iron concentration, turbidity and pH etc. A. Operation results of the first period Fig.3 shows that, running from the first cycle, the system can operate stably for nearly 50 hours, and the dose of coagulant controls to 80 mg/L. From the effluent index, the capacity of turbidity removal has not been put into great play. Its effective turbidity removal cycle only maintained at about 10 to 12 hours, and it may due to the larger dose of coagulant, which lead to the low removal rate of the clarification equipment and increase the payload of subsequent technics for a lot of lager floc.. As it seems from the change of effluent oil concentration, the ability of oil removal is obvious, and its effective removal cycle is between 44 and 47 hours, even in the condition of influent fluctuation (from 5 to 93mg/L), the effluent oil concentration can still maintain under 5mg/L. As it seems from the change of effluent iron concentration, the effective iron removal cycle of the system can be about 20 hours. B. Operation results of the second period The second period (Fig.4) shows that, because of adjusting the dose of coagulant to the appropriate range (25 to 30mg/L), the floc. in the clarification equipment become tiny and densify, benefiting to develop the deposit capability of coalescence equipment, as well as increasing the treatment capability of the system. If take A1 standard as a measure, the effective turbidity removal cycle can accumulate up to 20 hours, the oil removal cycle can up to 25 hours or more, and the iron removal cycle can reach to 20 to 30 hours, which the total effluent quality can fully satisfy the A1 standard and superior to the existing treatment facility. Whats more, during the regular period of this facility, the random test had been made by water quality analysis center (Jianghan Petroluem Prospecting & Design Institute of SINOPEC), and the results of water quality detection are shown as table. The data from table clearly show that the important indicators of effluent are able to reach the A1 standard. Moreover, the removal rate of SS, oil concentration and iron concentration exceed 90%. The results on the spot show that, even on the condition of relatively larger fluctuation of influent quality, the effluent quality has remained stabled. It is also indicate that, the
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Coalescence equipment Aiming at the A1 standard of oily re-injected water, the internal recycling coalescence equipment is designed on the basis of both the internal recycling continuous theory and the coalescence of collision mechanism. When oily wastewater flowing through the bed from bottom to the top, two or more oily particles may crash to the wall or one another at one time, which produce the impulse that can adequately make them to be a larger oil particle so as to achieve the purpose of coalescence[3]. In the process, the way of continuous flow is adopted, and the floating oil particles are collected to be impurities through the funnel or baffle, after consecutive purifying water discharge. As the running time accumulates, the surface of coalescence materials will be deposited with sludge and other suspended particles. At this time, the hydraulic resistance of filter bed increases, and when it comes to a certain value, the modified ceramic mediums need to be regeneration by water backwash or air-water backwash. Multi-filtration equipment Filtration is the key process of the oily wastewater treatment, as well as the final barrier of sewage treatment. The oil field and the design, as well as manufacture divisions, regard the technology and equipment of filtration as the point of research, yet there are still all kinds of defects that make the suspended solid and oil concentration hardly meet the A1 standard of oily re-injected water by now. On the basis of the anti-size filtration theory and the multi-filtration, the equipment is designed and processed into an actual one according to the imagination of multi-filtration equipment[4]. It is the three level anti-size filter and each level adopts the homogeneous lipophile ceramic medium. Although the size of ceramic medium in each level is nearly the same, it still exists the phenomenon that the size of filter medium is from large to small when as a whole, which makes the distribution of the whole filter levels deposit more uniform, and meanwhile ensure to meet the A1 standard under the condition of high filtration velocity. C.

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average turbidity of effluent is less than 1mg/L, the oil concentration is less than 5mg/L, the concentration of Fe is less than 0.5mg/L, which completely satisfied the A1 standard even influent quality had a larger fluctuation, compared with the test using traditional walnut shell filter medium at the same time, which the oil content was between 5mg/L to 8mg/L, total iron content was between 0.5 mg/L to 2mg/L, and effluent turbidity was between 2 mg/L to 5mg/L. The modified ceramic mediums, therefore, indicate a more favorable capability of oil removal and filtration. Moreover, the average filtration velocity of multi-filteration equipment reaches to 25m/h, which specifies the facility possessing the high efficiency of treatment as well. V. 1) CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK Since the facility adopts the new sort of highperformance porous environmental ceramics filter mediums, which are the modified lipophile medium (multi-filtration equipment) and oil-proof medium (coalescence equipment) respectively, the effect of removing oil is obvious. High efficiency of treatment capacity: coupled with the special structure of filtration, the indicators including effluent turbidity, oil and total iron content, ensure to achieve the A1 standard of oily re-injected water. The facility also has a compacted structure that occupy less area and easy to management. PLC automatic control: the working process of the facility is controlled by the special PLC controller, and the state of working and backwashing can switch automatically without manual operation, which ensures to keep the quality of continuous effluent stable. The highly total iron content in raw water and inadequate anti-corrosion measures lead to the change of effluent chroma, which affects sense and need further research.
Filter mediums Original mediums(lipophobic) Lipophobic mediums Original mediums(oleophobic) Oleophobic mediums

5)

In order to better application, the regeneration and rule of modified ceramics filter medium should be studied deeply in the future. During the pilot test, we only chose the main control indicators, such as effluent turbidity, oil and total iron content. For A1 standard, however, it still refers to some other control indicators, such as bacterium content, sulfide content and dissolved oxygen, etc. In the future, it will be continuously improved to guarantee the effluent quality of oil field wastewater for fully satisfying the A1 standard. In short, the implement of the new oily wastewater treatment facility will have a profound impact on the oily wastewater treatment, which is the technological revolution to regular techniques and will produce great economic and social benefits. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research project is supported by NSFC (National Science Foundation Committee) No: 20876122. Instructions from Professor Jianfeng Wu (Wuhan University of Technology) and Shibin Xia (Wuhan University of Technology) are also deeply appreciated. REFERENCES
[1] Chunlin Zhang and Xujun Zhang, Applicable Test of New-style Oilwater Separator in Treating Drainage of Oil Field, Environmental protection in petrochemical industry. Beijing, vol. 26, pp. 3033, 2003. ianhua Jin, Yun Yu and Cuihua Li, Study on the Performance of Filtration by Ceramic Media, China rural water and hydropower. Wuhan, vol. 4, pp. 67, 2006. Daming Gu, Yin Wang and Zhongjian Song, Removal of oil from waste water by coalescer, Journal of Harbin University of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Harbin, vol 35, pp. 6567, 2002. Yichun Chen, The Experimental Research of A New Ceramic Material for Oily Wastewater Treatment Facility Carried on the Vehicle, Wuhan, Wuhan University of Technology, 2005.

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[2]

[3]

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[4]

TABLE THE PERFORMANCE OF REMOVING OIL Velocity/m/h 15 15 5 5 Oil removal rate/% 50.5% 85.6% 57.7% 86.3%

TABLE RESULTS OF WATER QUALITY TEST Items SSmg/L Grain diameter medianm Oil concentrationmg/L Fe concentrationmg/L pH Raw water index 20.17 3.68 21.97 5.0 7.78 Effluent index 0.85 0.97 0.61 0.50 7.07 Removal rate% 95.8% 73.6% 97.2% 90% A1 standards <1 <1 <5 <0.5 6.5-7.5

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Figure 1. Modification process of lipophile ceramic mediums

Figure 2. Modification process of oleophobic ceramic mediums

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Figure 4. The operation results of the second period

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