Wastewater Treatment Resulting From an Oil Shale Retorting at High Frequency Ultrasound Waves With a Chemical Elemental Analysis

Abstract

This study aims at applying ultrasound techniques with high frequency to treat wastewater. One application that was chosen here is to apply ultrasound wave on spent wastewater resulting from Jordanian oil shale retorting, which is known as retort water. The proposed process has shown an excellent ability on retort water treatment. At a fixed high ultrasound wave of 1.7 MHz, the spent wastewater evaporated in a mist form and was drawn out by shaft fans for condensation in a vessel immersed in ice. The only parameter studied here is the spent wastewater volume used to apply an ultrasound wave on it, while ultrasound wave frequency and the exposing time were fixed in all experimental works. Physical properties like pH for condensate were measured and found to be close to 7 compared to its original value which was 4. The measured conductivity for condensate has been reduced in a significant value compared to its original sample. The best condition for reduced conductivity was obtained at 35 ml of spent wastewater. At this volume, the ultrasound wave has the ability to decrease the conductivity to its lowest value. Spent wastewater samples before and after the ultrasound exposing period of time were analyzed using mass spectrometer, and all scanned heavy metals that have been identified to be existing in retort water are listed here.

Keywords:

• clean technology
• high frequency ultrasound
• industrial wastewater treatment
• oil shale
• sonochemistry
• spent shale
• vapor recovery