TREATMENT OF PETROLEUM REFINERY WASTEWATER USING MULTI-STAGE BIOLOGICAL REACTOR

Refining crude oil in petroleum refinery results in relatively large quantities of
wastewater. Petroleum refinery wastewater (PRW) is highly polluted, hence proper
and effective treatment is needed; currently requires multiple treatment processes.
Therefore, the need for improved treatment processes never stops. Thinking green,
biological treatment is always a cheaper and safer solution for wastewater treatment,
as it involves the use of microorganisms to degrade organic matter. This study
focused on development of integrated multi-stage biological treatment process for
petroleum refinery wastewater. The study consisted of four phases, namely,
biodegradability of PRW, PRWtreatability in three configuration of sequencing batch
reactors (SBR), degradation of volatile organic compounds in anaerobic-anoxicaerobic
SBR and testing of multi-stage biological reactor (MSBR) under different
loads. PRW was found to be biodegradable in a 28-day batch study, with more than
95% COD removal in 24 hr under aerobic mode and 9 days under anaerobic mode.
Three SBR configurations (aerobic, anaerobic-aerobic and aerobic with PRW and
domestic wastewater mixed influent) were operated in parallel to determine the most
effective configuration and reaction time.