Investigation of spent caustic treatment processes in Bandar Abbas oil refinery

Subject Areas : Environmental pollutions (water, soil and air)

Roghaye Elmi ¹ , Arezoo Nejaei ² , Amir Farshi ³ , Mohammad Ebrahim Ramazani ⁴ , Ebrahim Alaie ⁵

1 - Ph.D. Student of Environment, Department of Environment, Tabriz branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran.
2 - Assistant professor, Department of Environment, Tabriz branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran. *(Corresponding Author)
3 - Assistant professor, Research Institute of petroleum Industry (RIPI), Tehran, Iran.
4 - Assistant professor, Department of Environment, Tabriz branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran.
5 - Associate Professor, Research Institute of petroleum Industry (RIPI), Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2021-06-03 Accepted : 2021-08-09 Published : 2021-12-22

Keywords: Caustic, COD, wet air oxidation, Box-Benken, response procedure diagram,

Abstract :

Background and Objective: Release of wastewater from spent caustic of refinery without the application of treatment methods will have adverse environmental effects due to its high toxic compounds and high chemical oxygen demand (COD). In this study, two processes of wet air oxidation (WAO) and neutralization with sulfuric acid (DAN) were investigated and optimized for treatment of wastewater from spent caustic of the Bandar Abbas oil refinery in southern Iran.Material and Methodology:  These processes were performed in the laboratory by a glass reactor and a 500 ml semi-continuous reactor for 18 months, from September 2019, respectively. Treatment process experiments involving two methods were performed on a number of important factors. Design Expert software was used to optimize the test results and Box- Benken (BBD) method was used to design the experiments.Findings: The results showed that the WAO process showed 43% reduction in COD. Temperature and pressure parameters had the greatest impact on the reduction of spent caustic COD. The DAN process reduced the COD by 68%. pH and temperature parameters had the most impact.Discussion and Conclusion: WAO has been a more environmentally friendly method, and the DAN process is recommended because of its popularity, ease of testing, lower equipment requirements, and lower cost.   

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