A B S T R A C TOil separation from produced water is commonly carried out at oilfields for resource recovery as well as environmental reasons. In this work, the separation of oil by induced air flotation was studied in a batch unit. A series of nonionic surfactants with different hydrophile-lipophile balance (HLB) values were used as a flotation agent. The effects of different HLB values and surfactant concentration on the oil removal of oilfield produced water were investigated. The removal rate constant (k) was determined and the flotation process followed first-order kinetics. The maximum oil removal obtained was approx. 80% after 4 min of flotation.
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