Control and Prevention of Wastewater Pollution From Amerya Petroleum Refining Company

An oil refinery normally uses large quantities of water, for cooling and other process purpose. This water is treated from contaminants and finally returned to a lake or sea, outside the refinery. Amerya Petroleum Refining Company (APRC) uses conventional and special treatment methods for wastewater to remove all pollutants and to reduce the oil content in refinery final effluent water to a limit of 10 ppm , as the maximum permissible limit for environmental protection as designated by the Egyptian Act No.4 for the year 1994 . About 80% of oil in wastewater is separated by API (American Petroleum Institute) separator method and returned to refinery. Small oil droplets, emulsion and suspended matter escaped from API separator but were removed successfully in the dissolved air flotation (DAF) with chemical additives as the secondary treatment stage for wastewater. The flotation method with chemical additives and filtration were used to reduce the suspended solids and oil content to permissible levels (10 ppm) Furthermore, biological treatment unit was constructed to remove the dissolved oxygen consuming contaminates, e.g. phenolic compounds and traces of hydrocarbon derivatives. It was found that the BOD and COD of the effluent were reduced, and 100% removal of the trace amount of phenol was achieved in effluent