STUDY OF WASTEWTER TREATMENT OF OIL & REFINERY

INDUSTRY
PREPARED BY
AMIL MEMON (150080717001)
AJAY ANDODARIYA (150080717002)
JAIMIN PATEL (150080717009)
KAUSHAL PATEL (150080717011)
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERIG
In
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

BIRLA VISHVAKARMA MAHAVIDHYALA, V.V.NAGAR

AUTONOMOUS INSTITUTE

INTRODUCTION
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed
and refined into more useful products such as petroleum naphtha, gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt
base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas. Oil refineries are typically large,
sprawling industrial complexes with extensive piping running throughout, carrying streams of
fluids between large chemical processing units. In many ways, oil refineries use much of the
technology of, and can be thought of, as types of chemical plants. The crude oil feed stock has
typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot (tank farm) at
or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid
products.
An oil refinery is considered an essential part of the downstream side of the petroleum industry.

WATER USE AND WASTE WATER GENERATION

The major use of water in a oil refinery is for cooling. Relatively small quantities of water are
used for boiler feed, processing, sanitary services, fire protection, and miscellaneous purposes. A
typical 50,000-barrels-per-day refinery generates more than 1,000 million Btu. Per hr and that
about 50 percent of this heat is removed by water. Allowing for other water uses and assuming a
30 F temperature rise in the cooling water, he estimated the refinery would require about 40,000
gpm (gallons per minute) to remove this amount of heat.
In oil refining, vapors are reduced to liquids in condensers and coolers are used to lower the
temperature of liquid products to permit safe handling. Water is the normal cooling medium used
in these units; however, refineries save both heat and water by cooling high-temperature products
with raw charging stocks and other cooler liquid streams.
Water requirements of early refineries were small and the uses of water were as simple as the
refining process. Water was needed only for cooling and for generating sufficient steam for the
pumps. In contrast, both the modern refining process and the use of water are varied and
complicated. The quantity and the quality of water required by the entire refinery and in
individual operations are affected by the type of refinery process.

A vacuum distillation unit consists of a pipe still and a distillation tower operated at a reduced
pressure that is maintained by the use of a barometric condenser and steam jets or vacuum
pumps. This equipment requires both water and steam.
Cracking, polymerization, and alkylation units use water for cooling and for other heat transfer
operations. Water is used for caustic and acid solutions and for product washing. Lubricating oils
are treated with acids, by contact with or percolation through clay, or by solvent extraction
methods. Both steam and water are used to recover solvents and to clean filter clays in lubricant
treating operations.

The second largest use of water in a refinery is makeup for boiler feed. The chief uses of steam
are for stripping, steam distillation, and vacuum distillation. The steam comes in contact with the
products in these operations, and generally the steam condensate is so highly contaminated that it
cannot be reused for boiler feed or for other purposes.
Smaller amounts of water are generally needed for process operations, sanitary and plant
services, fire protection, and other uses. The water requirements during a fire will be large, but
the average requirements for fire protection during -a year will be negligible. Some refineries use
separate fire-protection systems, whereas others use water from the cooling or other water
systems of the refinery to fight fires.
Waste products from refineries consist of oils, chemicals (especially acids, alkalies, sulfides, and
phenols), and suspended solids. The major sources of these wastes are equipment leakages and
spills, releases during shutdown or startup of equipment, condensate from steam-stripping
operations, waste water from crude oil desalters and from storage tanks, equipment cleaning,
regeneration of ion-exchange units, backwashing of filters, boiler and cooling tower blowdowns,
storm water, lavatories, and washhouses. Spent clays from clay treating units and bottom
sediments from separators and traps are examples of waste solids in refineries. Spent clays are
usually disposed of by dumping, whereas the other waste solids are withdrawn as slurry and
pumped to settling ponds.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WASTEWATER EFFLUENT

Like most industries, oil refinery industries use enormous quantities of water. In oil refinery
effluent 80 to 90 percent of the cooling water used by the average refinery is for cooling purpose
only and is not contaminated except by leaks in the lines.
The combined refinery waste contains crude oil, and various fractions thereof, and dissolved or
suspended mineral and organic compounds discharges in the liquors and sludge from various
stage of processing.
The oil may appear in waste water as free oil, emulsified oil, and as a coating or suspended
matter, though ordinarily not in proportion greater than ppm. However, floating oil is visible
even when present in very small concentrations, because of its availability to spread in very thin,
no destructible layers.

TREATMENT OF WASTEWATER
Wastewater treatment is different for each refinery. Some refineries treat each waste stream at its
source, and others collect all wastes for treatment in a single plant. Most modern refineries
segregate their wastes so that similar wastes are collected for treatment in one plant, and the
waste streams that require special treatment are treated at the source. The initial treatment of
refinery wastes commonly is to remove oils by an API gravity-type separator. The remaining oil
is treated to break the emulsion.

Some chemical wastes from oil refineries must receive individual treatment. Acid and alkaline
waste waters are neutralized by mixing with each other. Sulfides in waste water are neutralized
and stripped in an absorption tower. Phenols in waste water have been treated by aerobic
biological processes and in trickling niters, oxidation ponds, and cooling towers.
Sanitary waste water at most refineries is collected in a separate sewer system and treated in
septic tanks, primary settling tanks, and oxidation ponds, or discharged into city sewers. The
most common method of waste treatment was the API separator, which was used for treating
waste-water streams.

There are several methods of treating the effluent coming out from the oil & refinery waste
which are as following:
API Seperator
Equalization tank
Trickling filters
Aeration tanks
Lagoons

API SEPERATOR
API separators are frequently used in the treatment of refinery wastewater which usually
contains oil and oil-bearing sludge. Separators use the difference in specific gravity to allow
heavier material to settle below lighter liquids. Hydrocarbons that float on the surface are
skimmed off, while the sludge that settles to the bottom is removed periodically.
In a typical API separator, wastewater is first collected in a pretreatment section that allows
sludge removal. A diffusion barrier slowly allows the wastewater to flow down the separator
towards the outlet while the lighter oil fractions can be skimmed off. Flights and scrapers are
sometimes used to remove heavier solids. Underflow baffle plates are usually used to prevent oil
from escaping into the outlet section.
Figure shows a typical API separator

EQUALIZATION TANKS
They are provided (i) to balance fluctuating flows or concentrations, (ii) to assist self
neutralization, or (iii) to even out the effect of a periodic "slug"discharge from a batch process.
The objective of the equalization system is to minimize or reduce the fluctuations caused due to
either sudden change of flow or composition in the wastewater treatment plant.
Types of Equalization Tanks
Flow through type - useful in assisting self neutralization. A flow through type tank once
filled, gives output equal to input.
2) Intermittent flow type- Flow balancing and self-neutralization are both achieved by using
two tanks, intermittently one after another.
3) Variable inflow/constant discharge type- When flows are large an equalization tank of such
a size may have to be provided that inflow can be variable while outflow is at a constant rate
1)

Flow equalization: Flow equalization provides dampening of the flow variations, thereby
reducing potential spikes in flow and loads to the downstream units; it also reduces the size of
the downstream units and the cost of the overall refinery wastewater system.
Concentration equalization: This system provides dampening of contaminants, thereby
preventing the shock loading of the downstream units such as biological systems. In a
biologically-based system, performance is limited by the capacity of the microorganisms to
adapt to the changing conditions of variation in flow and composition.

TRICKLING FILTER
Also called trickle filter, trickling biofilter, biological filter and biological trickling filter
roughing filters, intermittent filters, packed media bed filters, alternative septic systems,
percolating filters, attached growth processes, and fixed film processes.
Consists of a fixed bed of rocks, lava, coke, gravel, slag, polyurethane foam, peat moss, ceramic,
or plastic media over which sewage flows downward and causes a layer of microbial slime
(biofilm) to grow, covering the bed of media.
Aerobic conditions are maintained by splashing, diffusion, and either by forced air flowing
through the bed or natural convection of air if the filter medium is porous.

AERATION TANKS
An aeration tank is a place where a liquid is held in order to increase the amount of air within it.
There are two main methods of aerating liquid: forcing air through the liquid or forcing liquid
through the air.
The water is mixed with biological agents and then aerated. The increased oxygen promotes the
growth of the beneficial biological material. That material will consume unwanted waste
products held in the water. The beneficial material will grow due to the increased oxygen and
food, which makes it easier to filter from the clean water.

LAGOONS
In this type of system, wastewater is treated in an earthen in-ground basin that is used for both
the aeration and the settling functions. Air is injected through mechanical or diffused aeration
units into the lagoon to promote biological treatment. There are usually two types of aerated
lagoons:
Aerobic lagoons: In aerobic lagoons, dissolved oxygen is maintained throughout the basins. For
this type of a system, settling can take place at a part of the pond separated by baffles or separate
sludge settling and disposal facilities might be required. The settled sludge is removed
periodically.
Aerobic-anaerobic/facultative lagoons: In these types of lagoons, oxygen is maintained in the
upper layer of the liquid in the basin and the rest of the lagoon remains anaerobic. A portion of
suspended solids moves to the downstream part of the lagoon where settling takes place an
Types of aerated lagoons or basins
1) Suspension mixed lagoons, where there is sufficient energy provided by the aeration
equipment to keep the sludge in suspension.
2) Facultative lagoons, where there is insufficient energy provided by the aeration equipment to
keep the sludge in suspension and solids settle to the lagoon floor. The biodegradable solids
in the settled sludge then degrade anaerobically.

MINIMUM STANDARDS REQUIRED

The treated water should have the maximum limits of the following
1) BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand):- 25 mg/l (30 day average) to 45 mg/l (7 day average)
2) TSS (Total Suspended Solids):-30 mg/l (30 day average) to 45 mg/l (7 day average)
3) pH shall remain between 6.0 and 9.0
4) In addition, there shall be no visible solids and/or visible oil or greases in the discharge.

REFERENCES

American Petroleum Institute, 1953 (5th ed.), 1958 (6th ed.), Waste water containing oil,
v. 1 of Manual on disposal of refinery wastes: New York, Am. Petroleum Inst., Div.
Refining.

1951 (2d ed.), 1953 (4th ed.), Chemical wastes, v. 3 of Manual on disposal of refinery
wastes: New York, Am. Petroleum Inst., Div. Refining.

American Water Works Association, Inc., 1950, Water quality and treatment, 2d ed.:
New York, Am. Water Works Assoc., 451 p.

American Water Works Association Task Group, 1953, Water conservation in industry:
Am. Water Works Assoc. Jour., v. 45, no. 12, p. 1249-1260.

Kelly, R. W., 1946, Water treatment in refineries: Petroleum Refiner, v. 25, no. 8, p. 143144.

Partin, J. L., 1953, Water conservation a byproduct of industrial waste control: Sewage
and Industrial Wastes, v. 25, no. 9, p. 1050-1059.

Shreve, R. N., 1956, The chemical process industries: New York, McGraw-Hill Book
Co., 1004 p.

Partin, J. L., 1953, Water conservation a byproduct of industrial waste control: Sewage
and Industrial Wastes, v. 25, no. 9, p. 1050-1059.

API Separators - The Workhorse of Refinery Wastewater Treatment Systems, Seimens,

v. 6, no. 1, January 2004