Billions of gallons of wastewaters containing oils and particulates are produced each year by metallurgical plants, ships, petroleum and gas operations, industrial washing operations, and other processes. Traditional technologies, such as gravity separators, air or gas flotation, chemical flocculation, plate coalescers, and hydroclones, are generally able to produce effluents containing as little as 30 ppm dispersed oil and particulates. However, these treatment technologies perform poorly on chemically stabilized suspensions and emulsions, very small particles and droplets (G-10 um in diameter), and soluble components. Moreover, effluents with less than 10 ppm impurities are desired, because of the potential toxic effects of the contaminants and their tendency to foul reverse-osmosis membranes and downstream processing equipment.
Microfiltration and ultrafiltration membranes are able to remove particulates, microorganisms and oils from water, if the membrane material and pore sizes are chosen appropriately. However, they are subject to fouling, which often reduces the permeate flux (volume of water passing through the membrane per surface area per time) below acceptable levels.
Water systems have long tended to be one of the neglected areas of the process plant. However, this situation is changing rapidly as environmental legislation tightens. This course is uniquely placed to assist process plants in meeting these challenges, offering unrivalled expertise in water systems and the problems associated with treatment of oily water. Much of the technology discussed in this course has been developed to meet the challenges faced in the North Sea; oil producers there face some of the toughest environmental controls in the oil industry.
This course will cover all stages of oily water treatment from receiving waste oil and oily water to delivering cleaned water that meets the environmentally safe standards.