Organic Contaminants in Refinery Wastewater: Characterization and Novel Approaches for Biotreatment

Abstract

Addressing major environmental issues, such as water pollution, is essential nowadays in realizing sustainable development. The ever-increasing world population and industrial development have led to the introduction of diferent types of chemicals to the environment, leading to considerable deterioration in environmental quality. A major class of these chemicals is phenolic compounds, which are hazardous pollutants and highly toxic even at low concentrations. In recent years, researchers have realized the importance of extracting new bacterial strains that are efective in treating diferent types of highly contaminated wastewaters at diferent severe conditions. They also focused considerable amount of research on developing new types of reactors that would provide eicient mixing and reduce mass transfer limitations. The aim is to develop and evaluate efective reactor systems and biocatalysts for the biodegradation of major contaminants in petroleum reinery wastewater. This chapter examines the diferent available options for the treatment of reinery wastewater with more focus on novel biotreatment options.

Bioremediation of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) by Bioaugmentation and Biostimulation in Water with Floating Oil Spill Containment Booms as Bioreactor Basin

“…Petroleum hydrocarbons may be used by bacteria [ 10 , 33 , 52 ], yeasts [ 11 , 85 , 86 ], fungi [ 33 , 87 ] and algae [ 78 , 88 ]. The regulation of the bioremediation cycle is a difficult process with multiple optimization variables.…”

“…The largest group of environmental pollutants worldwide is produced from crude oil-based hydrocarbons [ 7 ]. Processing activities in the hydrocarbon oil industry releases hazardous aromatic organic compounds such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phenolic substances that are barely degradable by nature, chlorophenols and cresols toxins from hydrocarbons into the environment [ 8 , 9 , 10 ]. On the other hand, crude oil spills have intensified oil pollution problems during transportation and storage operations.…”

Applications of Biocatalysts for Sustainable Oxidation of Phenolic Pollutants: A Review

“…The general characterization of these types of effluents is presented in Table 1. The generated wastewater by different processes is mainly characterized by a high COD [31], which is mostly due to the overall contribution of several inorganic substances (i.e., cyanides, sulfides and ammonia), emulsified oil and aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons (especially up to C 10 ) such as ethylbenzene, benzene, methyl tertiary butyl ether, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), toluene and phenolic compounds [31]. In addition, high concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS), phenol, benzene, xylene, heavy oil, total suspended solids (TSS) and toluene in different petroleum and petrochemical wastewater were observed in the previous literature [32].…”

Treatment and Valorisation of Saline Wastewater: Principles and Practice

“…Regarding the characteristics of the wastewater, not only the presence of high salinities, but also other compounds, are a drawback for biological processes. According to Al-Khalid and El-Naas (2018) the effluent from a petroleum refinery contains average values of: 5.2-6.8 mS/cm (EC), 3,800-6,200 mg/L as TDS, 14.5-16.0 mg SO 4 −2 /L and 160-185 mg/L as total phenol. Regarding the amount of wastewater generated, these authors indicated that, on average, processing a barrel of crude oil consumes 246-341 litres of water with the subsequent wastewater production.…”