Performance of an integrated membrane pilot plant for wastewater reuse: case study of oil refinery plant in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the performance examination of an integrated membrane system (IMS) pilot plant having capacity of 250–300 L/h for oil refinery wastewater reuse of oil refinery plant in Indonesia. The IMS pilot plant consisted of a multimedia filter (MMF), an ultrafiltration (UF) unit, a reverse osmosis (RO) unit, and a membrane bioreactor (MBR) unit. The UF system was used as a pretreatment prior to RO, the RO unit was used to produce cooling water make-up and the MBR system was used for treating RO concentrate. The test results suggested that backwashing with a more frequent interval is needed to maintain stable flux of UF membrane. With the cleaning every 14 days, the resulting RO permeate was stable and able to fulfil the plant requirements of cooling water make-up. Treatment of RO concentrate using MBR unit resulted in permeate having relatively high chemical oxygen demand (COD). Further treatment by adsorption using granular activated carbon (GAC) proved that GAC was an effective method for reducing the COD level.

Keywords:

• Oil refinery wastewater
• Cooling water
• Integrated membrane system
• Wastewater reuse

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Republic of Indonesia for the financial support.