Investigation of oil adsorption capacity of granular organoclay media and the kinetics of oil removal from oil-in-water emulsions

摘要

Produced water, a byproduct of oil and gas production, includes almost 98% ofall waste generated by oil and gas exploration and their production activities. This oilcontaminated waste water has a great impact on our environment and is considered to bea high-cost liability. The Department of Energy??????s Oil and Gas Environmental Program isconcerned with the development of new and affordable technology to clean thisproduced water. Organically modified clays are proposed as a good option for removalof oil from produced water. Organoclay, incorporated into a treatment process showspromise of being a cost effective method of treatment to remove crude oil from brineeither as a final treatment prior to brine disposal at sea or as a precursor to desalination.Organoclay also pre-polishes the waste water before further treatment. This researchstudies the efficacy of using organoclay to remove oil by measuring its adsorptioncapacity to remove the oil from a SAE 30 (Golden West Superior) motor oil-wateremulsion. A kinetic model was developed to examine the time dependent behavior of theoil adsorbing characteristics of the organoclay and to investigate how closely theexperimentally obtained data matches the kinetic model. It was found that organoclay is effective in removing various percentages of oil depending on the concentrations of aSAE 30 (Golden West Superior) motor oil-water emulsion. Moreover, it was found thatthe experimental data closely follow the kinetic behavior of the organoclay as shown bythe kinetic model. Since this research is specific to a particular type of oil, SAE 30,further research is required for verifying the adsorption capacity of organoclay in othertypes of oils. Moreover, it is also recommended that the adsorption capacity of theorganoclay, together with conventional adsorbent such as GAC (Granular ActivatedCarbon), be investigated to determine if there is any further improvement in theadsorption capacity. Lastly, a detailed investigation using the actual produced waterfrom the oil field should be conducted to determine the efficacy of the organoclaysystem in removing oil from water produced in the field.