Global NEST Journal, Vol 19, No 3, pp 439-452 Copyright© 2017 Global NEST Printed in Greece. All rights reserved Treatment of petroleum wastewater by conventional and new technologies - A review Aljuboury D.A.D.A.1,*, Palaniandy P.1, Abdul Aziz H.B.1 and Feroz S.2 1School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia 2Caledonian College of Engineering, Oman Received: 01/01/2017, Accepted: 29/08/2017, Available online: 19/10/2017 *to whom all correspondence should be addressed: e-mail: [email protected] treated biologically (Vendramel S. et al., 2015; Rasheed et Abstract al., 2011; Asatekin A. et al., 2009). Removal of pollutants The objective of this study is to summarize studies and produced by industrial plants is requirement for reuse of investigations and show a brief details of different water and obtains to environmental standards technologies used for the treatment of petroleum (Farajnezhad and Gharbani, 2012). Petroleum wastewater wastewater. The wastewater from Petroleum industries are a major source of aquatic environmental pollution and and refineries mainly contains oil, organic matter and other are wastewater originating from industries primarily compounds. The treatment of this wastewater can be engaged in refining crude oil, manufacturing fuels and carried out by physical, chemical and biological treatment lubricants (Wake et al., 2005) and petrochemical processes. Treatment of petroleum wastewater has two intermediates (Harry et al., 1995). Coelho et al., (2006) stages, firstly, pre-treatment stage to reduce grease, oil reported that the volume of petroleum wastewater and suspended materials. Secondly, an advanced generated during processing is 0.4–1.6 times the amount treatment stage to degrade and decrease the pollutants to of the crude oil processed. If the petroleum wastewater, acceptable discharge values. Most studies are focused on which contained high organic matter, discharged into the degradation of some pollutants found in the petroleum aquatic environment, which required 2 mg L-1 from wastewater such as organic materials, phenols, sulphides dissolved oxygen for normal life, results in decreased and ammonia. dissolved oxygen by the bacteria (Attiogbe et al., 2007). In Keywords: Petroleum wastewater treatment; Physical anaerobic systems, the products of chemical and treatment processes; Chemical treatment processes; biochemical reactions produce displeasing colors and Biological treatment processes. odors in water. So, the oxygen availability is important in water to reduce that (Attiogbe et al., 2007). 1. Introduction These effluents are composed of grease and petroleum The increasing global energy demand,which expected to be compounds which consists of three main hydrocarbon 44% over the next two decades (Doggett and Rascoe, groups; Paraffin [very few carbon atoms (C1 to C4) such as 2009), makes the processing of petroleum, which is a Methane (CH4), Ethane (C2H6) and Propane (C3H8)], complex mixture of organic liquids called crude oil and Naphthene [such as Cyclohexane (C6H12) and Dimethyl natural gas, and the generation of petroleum wastewater Cyclopentane (C7H14)] and Aromatics [The more carbon important issues. Industrial wastewater treatment is atoms a hydrocarbon molecule such as Benzene (C6H6), important study area in environmental engineering. The Toluene (C7H8) and Xylene (C8H10) (Wang B., 2015). In treatment of petroleum and petrochemical wastewater is addition, Naphthenic acids (NAs) which are one class of widely studies area of research. These streams are difficult compounds in wastewaters from petroleum industries that to treat due to large concentrations of oil. are known to cause toxic effects, and their removal from The composition of effluent in refinery wastewater oilfield wastewater is an important challenge for depends on the crude quality. It varies with the operating remediation of large volumes of petrochemical effluents conditions (Benyahia et al., 2006). In the refinery, non- (Wang B., 2015). When a crude oil contains appreciable hydrocarbon substances are removed and the oil is broken quantities of Sulphur, it is called sour crude. So, Sour water down into its various components and blended into useful is a specific stream of petroleum refineries, which contains products. So, petroleum refineries produce large volumes slowly biodegradable compounds and toxic substances of wastewater including oil well produced water brought to (Coelho et al., 2006). Petroleum wastewater can vary the surface during oil drilling, which often contain a greatly depending on the plant configuration, operation recalcitrant compounds and rich in organic pollutants procedures and type of oil being processed (Saien and therefore cannot be treated easily and difficult to be Nejati, 2007). Aljuboury D.A.D.A., Palaniandy P., Abdul Aziz H.B. and Feroz S. (2017), Treatment of petroleum wastewater by conventional and new technologies - A review, Global NEST Journal, 19(3), 439-452. 440 ALJUBOURY et al. The methods of petroleum wastewater treatment need to phenols in the received waste streams at the refinery other steps to remove the organic matter, because they wastewater treatment plant were the neutralized spent transfer of contaminants from one medium to another caustic (average 234 mg/l) waste streams, the tank water which include Chemical oxidation (Hu G et al., 2015), drain (average 11.8 mg/l) and the desalter effluent Biological techniques (Wang Y. et al., 2015), Coagulation (average 1.4 mg/l) (Al Hashemi W. et al., 2015). Other units (Abu hassan M.A., 2009; Farajnezhad and Gharbani, 2012; not directly involved with processing; Sanitary, crude tank El-Naas et al., 2009) and Adsorption (Al Hashemi W., 2015). and laboratory water (Al Zarooni and Elshorbagy, 2006). In addition, new technologies have also been reported such The dominant pollutants in order of magnitude in as Microwave-assisted catalytic wet air oxidation (Sun petrochemical wastewater were normal-alkanes (C10-C21), et al., 2008) and Membranes (Shariati et al., 2011; Yuliwati aromatics, and polycyclic hydrocarbons (Shokrollahzadeh E. et al., 2011). et al., 2008). Diyauddeen et al., (2011) reviewed treatment technologies 4. Petroleum wastewater characteristics for petroleum refinery effluents (PRE) and showed that the petroleum refinery effluents treatment consisted of two The different types of organic materials typically found in main steps, which were pre-treatment and advanced the petroleum as shown in Table 1. Due to the petroleum treatment. The Biodegradation, Photo catalytic wastewater contented high polycyclic aromatics, which degradation, adsorption and other have been investigated were very toxic as well as a wide range of contaminants at with promising results. The important parameters in these varied concentrations, it was considered hazardous treatment techniques were chemical oxygen demand pollutants on the environment (Mrayyana and Battikhi, (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total petroleum 2005; Wake et al., 2005). The identification of the organic hydrocarbon (TPH), oil and grease, sulphate and phenols. pollutants in petroleum refinery wastewater in some Because these methods have some disadvantages, the refineries showed that the major compounds were advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), in recent years, get different fractions of petroleum aliphatic hydrocarbons (up more attention due to their capability of rapid degradation to C10) and the well-known aromatic compounds such as of recalcitrant pollutants in the aquatic environment by benzene, toluene and ethyl-benzene (Saien et al., 2007). hydroxyl radical (.OH) (Aljuboury et al., 2015a; Kim J.L. Seif et al., (2001) showed that the maximum removal for et al., 2012), which has a high oxidation potential COD and BOD were around 1400-1500 mg/l and 25-30 (estimated to be +2.8 V) relative to other oxidants (Al- mg/l, respectively from different sources of petrochemical Rasheed et al., 2005) and they have high efficiencies and wastewater by using physical treatment and concluded less generation of sludge. In addition, they operate within that separation and individual treatment for each source a wide pH range. This review study focuses on studies and was a good alternative against treatment full quantity after investigation on petroleum wastewater treatment. mixing of different sources. The petroleum wastewater are complex matrices of 2. Wastewater and petroleum wastewater organic pollutants as shown in Table 1 and the most of The refineries were classified into either hydro-skimming them contented Oil and grease, which clog drain pipes and unit, which include a crude distillation unit, a de- causing unpleasant odors and corroding as well as are sulphurising unit and a reforming unit, or a complex unit, sticky (Chen et al., 1999; Xu and Zhu, 2004), phenolic which include a catalytic cracking unit with the hydro- compounds, which threat the environment due to their skimming refinery (Al Zarooni and Elshorbagy, 2006). In extreme toxicity and ability to remain for long periods addition, Petrochemical plants were sometimes (Kavitha and Palanivelu, 2004; Abdelwahab et al., 2009; incorporated within the refinery complex (Wake et al., Lathasree et al., 2004; Pardeshi and Patil, 2008; Yang et al., 2005). In general, the pollutants in wastewater can be 2008), and the nitrogen and sulphur components, which divided into organic matter, inorganic matters which are represented in the form of ammonia and hydrogen include nitrogen, phosphorus, ammonia and iron chlorides