Application of reverse osmosis membraine for mercury removal from refinery wastewater

Oil and gas processing activities is causes excess water consumption, which leads to excessive production of wastewater. This produced waste water contains mineral and biological compounds which can contaminate water and ground water. Vast amount of this industries’ produced wastewater in Oil-rich countries which mostly are arid countries, lead them to find more effective methods for water reuse as a new water resources. One of the most important water pollutant are heavy metals, so investigator are believe that heavy metals toxicity into environment is more than which disperse from radioactive toxicity to ground water and seas. Various physical, chemical and biological methods of waste water treatment are applied in refining and petrochemical industries. considerable amount af mercury with different operational units’ wastewater is discharge to environment from refinery units. Since mercury is not biodegradable and tend to accumulate in living organisms, we must be able to control it by using effective methods. Application of membrane filtration is new method for water and wastewater treatment industry. In this research, by application of case study on one of the nation’s gas refineries, reverse osmosis membrane system performance under different operating conditions, was studied. For this purpose effects of variable parameters, namely operating pressure (5, 7, 9 and 11 bar), pH (3, 6, 9, 11) and mercury concentration (1, 2, 4, 8 and 12 mg/l) on removal performance were studied. Considering removal performance of mercury, COD, TDS, EC, Turbidity and also membrane flow rate, optimum operating condition was obtained. Base on the results, reverse osmosis membrane performance is efficient in optimum parameters’ value, namely 7 bar pressure and pH=9 from permeate water quality and economical aspects. by increasing system pressure a significant decline in mercury and COD removal efficiency was observed. removal efficiency of mercury, COD, and TDS in 7 bar pressure condition was 91.35%, 99.55%, and 94.89% respectively and also permeat flowrate was acceptable, so 7 bar was found as optimum pressure. On the next stage af investigation, although by increasing wastewater sampel’s pH, a considerable increase in mercury and COD removal efficiency was observed, it cause a dramatic rise in TDS and turbidity in feed wastewater and also in permeate stream. More over high value of pH, namely pH=11 can make system prone to fouling. So pH=9 was choosen as a optimum pH. Finally reverse osmosis membrane performance in encountering with possible shocks and high concentration of influent mercury was investigated. Although results shows a significant decrease in membrane removal efficiency in encountering with high influent mercury concentration, reverse osmosis membrane system efficiency in mercury removal is acceptable in encountering conventional mercury concentration of refineries. reverse osmosis membrane performance is efficient in optimum parameters’ value namely 7 bar pressure and pH=9, so removal efficiency of mercury,COD, and TDS was 97.5%, 99.755 and 93.29% respectively.