Pretreatment of Oil Produced Water Using Low Cost Adsorbents

The treatment of oil produced water (OPW) was an enormous task for oil and gas industry. Various costly technologies have been adopted on field to treat OPW before reuse or disposal to environment. Adsorption technology with low cost adsorbents was quite effective to treat OPW to certain extent. In the present studies, low cost adsorbents from raw date seeds (DSA) and coconut shells (CSA) were prepared, characterized and employed for the treatment of OPW. OPW was characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GS-MS), before and after the treatment with low cost adsorbents. Prepared adsorbents were characterized with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffractometer, before and after activation. The effect of contact time and dosage on percentage removal efficiency of dissolved oxygen (DO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total organic carbon (TOC), and oil & grease were evaluated. The maximum percentage removal efficiency of DO=33.3%, COD=43.4%, TDS=66.4%, TSS=15%, BOD=96.6%, TOC=80.4% and oil & grease = 99.9% was achieved with DSA and DO=25.6%, COD=37.4%, TDS=61.1%, TSS=5.3%, BOD=96.6%, TOC=79.2%, and oil & grease=99.8% was achieved with CSA, respectively for a dosage of 10 g/100 mL and contact time 60 min.