METHOD FOR REMOVAL OF MERCURY FROM OIL FIELD BRINE WITH CALCIUM CARBONATE CO-PRECIPITATION

摘要

The present study concentrates on the investigation of mercury removal from oil-field brine by co-precipitation process. The produced brine containing heavy metals is usually returned to the reservoir for water flooding or is discarded to the surroundings. Therefore, heavy metal removal seems necessary in order to keep safe the environment and human life. Mercury is one of the most toxic metals which has no known function in human biochemistry or physiology and does not occur naturally in living organisms. Co-precipitation technique was used to remove mercury from the oil field brine in the present study. For this purpose, effects of different parameters including pH and concentration of different reactive components were examined on the mercury elimination from oil field brine. The obtained results showed that utilization of CaCO_3 co-precipitation technique leads to a reduction of mercury content of the contaminated brine from 0.5 ppm to 0.055 ppm which means 89% efficiency of mercury elimination. In addition, scanning electron microscopy technique was used to check the particle size of the precipitated particles.