Advanced treatment of oilfield production wastewater by an integration of coagulation/flotation, catalytic ozonation and biological processes

ABSTRACT

In this study, advanced treatment of heavily polluted oilfield production wastewater (OPW) was investigated employing the combination of coagulation/dissolved air flotation, heterogeneous catalytic ozonation and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) processes. Two SBR reactors were separately set up before and after the ozonation unit. The results show that microbubble flotation was more efficient than macrobubble flotation in pollutant removal. Catalytic ozonation with the prepared Fe/activated carbon catalyst significantly enhanced pollutant removal in the second SBR by improving wastewater biodegradability and reducing wastewater microtoxicity. The treatment technique decreased oil, chemical oxygen demand and NH₃-N by about 97%, 88% and 91%, respectively, allowing the discharge limits to be met. Therefore, the integrated process with efficient, economical and sustainable advantages was suitable for advanced treatment of real OPW.

KEYWORDS:

• Coagulation
• oilfield production wastewater
• heterogeneous catalytic ozonation
• catalyst
• microtoxicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.