Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Comparison of two methods of neutralization and wet air oxidation for treating wastewater spent caustic produced by oil refineries

  • Published:
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Today, problems of treating wastewater spent caustic produced by refinery units with high toxic compounds and chemical oxygen demand (COD) become concerns of many managers of these industries and environmental experts. Hence, emission without application of treatment methods will have adverse environmental impacts. In this study, two direct acid neutralization (DAN) and wet air oxidation (WAO) processes were selected to treatment the wastewater of the Bandar Abbas oil refinery in southern Iran. The aim was to reduce COD and harmful substances, compare the two methods, optimize processes, and evaluate their performance. Experimental experiments were performed in a reactor system with different input variables related to two different methods. Parameter optimization was performed based on Box-Behnken (BBD) method and Design Expert software. The analysis of the results based on statistical methods and response procedure diagrams was used to evaluate the status of COD changes to the parameters. The best operating conditions of temperature, pressure, residence time, and stoichiometric coefficient of air were 148.269 °C, 15.716 bar, 3.563 h, and 8.415 l/h respectively in WAO with 68% reduction in COD, and for DAN process, temperature, pH, and agitation speed were 30.082 °C, 2.008, and 203.672 rpm, respectively, with 43% reduction in COD. Results of rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) showed that WAO process with a higher score is a more environmentally friendly method and DAN process has been considered by experts due to its popularity, ease of testing, less equipment requirements, and lower cost.

Graphical abstract

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author. The datasets supporting the conclusions of this article are included within the article. All data is available on request.

References

  • Ahmadpour, A., Haghighi Asl, A., & Fallah, N. (2016). Photocatalytic treatment of spent caustic wastewater in petrochemical industries. Advances in Environmental Technology, 2(3), 153–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahmadpour, A., Haghighiasl, A., & Fallah, N. (2018). Investigation of spent caustic wastewater treatment through response surface methodology and artificial neural network in a photocatalytic reactor. Iranian Journal of Chemical Engineering (IJChE), 15(1), 46–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alipour, Z., & Azari, A. (2020). COD removal from industrial spent caustic wastewater: A review. Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, 8(3), 103678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2020.103678

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Alnaizy, R. (2008). Economic analysis for wet oxidation processes for the treatment of mixed refinery spent caustic. Environmental Progress, 27(3), 295–301.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Arabian, D., Bolhasani, A., and Karamian, S. (2018). Optimization of spent caustic effluent treatment of Jam Petrochemical by wet air oxidation method. 5th International Conference on Recent Innovations in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. 2 Feb. Tehran, Iran. 1–15. (In Persian).

  • Arena, F., Di Chio, R., Gumina, B., Spadaro, L., & Trunfio, G. (2015). Recent advances on wet air oxidation catalysts for treatment of industrial wastewaters. Inorganica Chimica Acta, 431, 101–109.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Arena, F., Italiano, C., Ferrante, G. D., Trunfio, G., & Spadaro, L. (2014). A mechanistic assessment of the wet air oxidation activity of MnCeOx catalyst toward toxic and refractory organic pollutants. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 144, 292–299.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Arena, F., Italiano, C., Raneri, A., & Saja, C. (2010). Mechanistic and kinetic insights into the wet air oxidation of phenol with oxygen (CWAO) by homogeneous and heterogeneous transition-metal catalysts. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 99(1–2), 321–328.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Barge, A. S., & Vaidya, P. D. (2018). Wet air oxidation of cresylic spent caustic—A model compound study over graphene oxide (GO) and ruthenium/GO catalysts. Journal of Environmental Management, 212, 479–489.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Barge, A. S., & Vaidya, P. D. (2020). Kinetics of wet air oxidation of sodium sulfide over heterogeneous iron catalyst. International Journal of Chemical Kinetics, 52(2), 92–98.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Box, G. E., & Wilson, K. B. (1951). On the experimental attainment of optimum conditions. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series b (methodological), 13(1), 1–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Box, G. E. P., & Behnken, D. W. (1960). Some new three level designs for the study of quantitative variables. Technometrics, 2(4), 455–475. https://doi.org/10.2307/1266454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlos, T.M.S. and Maugans, C.B. (2000). Wet air oxidation of refinery spent caustic: A refinery case study. In NPRA Conference. 12 Sep. San Antonio, Texas. (pp. 1–12).

  • Chandraseagar, S., Abdulrazik, A.H., Abdulrahman, S.N. and Abdaziz, M.A. (2019). November. Aspen Plus simulation and optimization of industrial spent caustic wastewater treatment by wet oxidation method. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 702, No. 1, p. 012011). IOP Publishing.

  • Chen, C., & Cheng, T. (2013). Wet air oxidation and catalytic wet air oxidation for refinery spent caustics degradation. Journal of the Chemical Society of Pakistan, 35(2), 244–250.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Debellefontaine, H., Chakchouk, M., Foussard, J. N., Tissot, D., & Striolo, P. (1996). Treatment of organic aqueous wastes: Wet air oxidation and wet peroxide oxidation®. Environmental Pollution, 92(2), 155–164.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, C. E., Lawson, R. J., & Brandenburg, B. L. (1998). Wet air oxidation of ethylene plant spent caustic. Environmental Progress, 17(1), 28–30.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Farzi, A., & Moslemi Byrami, S. (2015). Treatment of ethylene spent caustic pollutant using sulfuric acid. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 6(10), 382–386.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hasanzadegan Roudsari, M., Soltani, M., Seyedin, S. H., & Chen, P. (2017). Investigation on new method of spent caustic treatment. Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology (JMEST), 4(6), 7459–7464.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawari, A., Ramadan, H., Abu-Reesh, I., & Ouederni, M. (2015). A comparative study of the treatment of ethylene plant spent caustic by neutralization and classical and advanced oxidation. Journal of Environmental Management, 151, 105–112.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Heponiemi, A., Rahikka, L., Lassi, U., & Kuokkanen, T. (2015). Catalytic oxidation of industrial wastewaters—A comparison study using different analyzing methods. Chemical Engineering Transactions, 17, 209–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hii, K., Baroutian, S., Parthasarathy, R., Gapes, D. J., & Eshtiaghi, N. (2014). A review of wet air oxidation and thermal hydrolysis technologies in sludge treatment. Bioresource Technology, 155, 289–299.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jing, G., Luan, M., & Chen, T. (2013). Wet air oxidation of oily sludge using Ni 2+ catalyst. Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, 32(1), 99–102.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Karimi, A., Fatehifar, E., Alizadeh, R., & Ahadzadeh, I. (2016). Regeneration and treatment of sulfidic spent caustic using analytic hierarchy process. Environmental Health Engineering and Management Journal, 3(4), 203–208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karimi, A., Fatehifar, E., Alizadeh, R., & Ahadzadeh, I. (2017). Regeneration of spent caustic of olefin unit in a bubble column reactor: Treatment and recovery optimization. Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, 36(2), 341–347.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Karimi, S., Shokri, A., & Aghel, B. (2020). Remediation of spent caustic in the wastewater of oil refinery by photo-fenton process. Arch Hyg Sci, 9(3), 179–188.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ketu, J. (2013). Treatment and disposal of spent caustic at TEMA oil refinery (TOR) (Doctoral dissertation).

  • Kim, K. H., & Ihm, S. K. (2011). Heterogeneous catalytic wet air oxidation of refractory organic pollutants in industrial wastewaters: A review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 186(1), 16–34.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kolaczkowski, S. T., Plucinski, P., Beltran, F. J., Rivas, F. J., & McLurgh, D. B. (1999). Wet air oxidation: A review of process technologies and aspects in reactor design. Chemical Engineering Journal, 73(2), 143–160.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kumari, M., & Saroha, A. K. (2018). Performance of various catalysts on treatment of refractory pollutants in industrial wastewater by catalytic wet air oxidation: A review. Journal of Environmental Management, 228, 169–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luan, M., Jing, G., Piao, Y., Liu, D., & Jin, L. (2012). Treatment of refractory organic pollutants in industrial wastewater by wet air oxidation. Arabian Journal of Chemistry, 10, S769–S776.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luck, F. (1999). Wet air oxidation: Past, present and future. Catalysis Today, 53(1), 81–91.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mohammadizadeh, Z., Farshi, A., Royaee, S. J., & Jodaree, N. (2018). An extensive review on spent caustic treatment methods in oil and gas industry. Iranian Chemical Engineering Journal, 17(96), 39–55. (In Persian).

    Google Scholar 

  • Montes, R. E., Gomez, F. A., & Hanrahan, G. (2008). Response surface examination of the relationship between experimental conditions and product distribution in electrophoretically mediated microanalysis. Electrophoresis, 29(2), 375–380.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mortazavian, A., Mortaheb, H. R., & Mafi, M. (2018). Spent caustic wastewater treatment of petrochemical units by wet air oxidation process. Journal of Applied Research in Chemistry., 2, 59–67. (In Persian).

    Google Scholar 

  • Nasr Esfahani, K., Farhadian, M., & Nazar, A. S. (2019). Interaction effects of various reaction parameters on the treatment of sulfidic spent caustic through electro-photo-fenton. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 16(11), 7165–7174.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Padoley, K. V., Tembhekar, P. D., Saratchandra, T., Pandit, A. B., Pandey, R. A., & Mudliar, S. N. (2012). Wet air oxidation as a pretreatment option for selective biodegradability enhancement and biogas generation potential from complex effluent. Bioresource Technology, 120, 157–164.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pakravan, P., Akhbari, A., Moradi, H., Hemati Azandaryani, A., Mansouri, A. M., & Safari, M. (2015). Process modeling and evaluation of petroleum refinery wastewater treatment through response surface methodology and artificial neural network in a photocatalytic reactor using poly ethyleneimine (PEI)/titania (TiO 2) multilayer film on quartz tube. Applied Petrochemical Research, 5(1), 47–59.

  • Pastakia, C. M., & Jensen, A. (1998). The rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) for EIA. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 18(5), 461–482.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pino-Cortés, E., Montalvo, S., Huiliñir, C., Cubillos, F., & Gacitúa, J. (2020). Characteristics and treatment of wastewater from the mercaptan oxidation process: A comprehensive review. Processes, 8(4), 425.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rai, S., Wasewar, K. L., Lataye, D. H., Mishra, R. S., Puttewar, S. P., Chaddha, M. J., Mahindiran, P., & Mukhopadhyay, J. (2012). Neutralization of red mud with pickling waste liquor using Taguchi’s design of experimental methodology. Waste Management & Research, 30(9), 922–930.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salimi, S., & Ovaysi, S. (2020). Spent caustic treatment of Kermanshah Oil Refining Company using wet air oxidation method. 6th National Congress on Strategic Research in Chemical and Chemical Engineering with Emphasis on Iranian Native Technologies. 20 Jun, Tehran, Iran. 1–12. (In Persian)

  • Samadiafshar, A. (2012). Study on basic methods of spent caustic treatment. In The first international conference oil, gas, petrochemical and power plant, University of Tehran, Tehran. 6pp.

  • Seyedin, S. H., & Hassanzadeganroudsari, M. (2018). The efficient process for spent-caustic wastewater treatment. International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, 5(2), 5284–5288.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suthar, S., & Sajwan, A. (2014). Rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) analysis as decision tool to select new site for municipal solid waste disposal: A case study of Dehradun city, India. Sustainable Cities and Society, 13, 12–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taheri, M., Gholamalifard, M., Ghazizade, M. J., & Rahimoghli, S. (2014). Environmental impact assessment of municipal solid waste disposal site in Tabriz, Iran using rapid impact assessment matrix. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 32(2), 162–169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tungler, A., Szabados, E., & Hosseini, A.M. (2015). Wet air oxidation of aqueous wastes. Wastewater Treatment Engineering, p.153.

  • Wang, J., Fu, W., He, X., Yang, S., & Zhu, W. (2014). Catalytic wet air oxidation of phenol with functionalized carbon materials as catalysts: Reaction mechanism and pathway. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 26(8), 1741–1749.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, S., Zhu, W., Wang, J., & Chen, Z. (2008). Catalytic wet air oxidation of phenol over CeO2-TiO2 catalyst in the batch reactor and the packed-bed reactor. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 153(3), 1248–1253.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Y. (2020). Wet oxidation technology based on organic wastewater treatment. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1549(2), p. 022040. IOP Publishing.

  • Zhu, W., Bin, Y., Li, Z., Jiang, Z., & Yin, T. (2002). Application of catalytic wet air oxidation for the treatment of H-acid manufacturing process wastewater. Water Research, 36(8), 1947–1954.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, F. J., & Diddams, D. G. (1960). The Zimmermann process and its application in the pulp and paper industry. TAPPI, 43, 710–715.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The present research has been a result of a student project entitled “spent caustic treatment of Bandar Abbas oil refinery via wet air oxidation (WAO) and its comparison with catalytic oxidation methods as well as parameter optimization” approved by the research institute of The Petroleum Industry. Accordingly, the authors highly appreciate all organizations and individuals who contributed to the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environment, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran

    Roghaye Elmi, Arezoo Nejaei & Mohammad Ebrahim Ramazani

  2. Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Tehran, Iran

    Amir Farshi & Ebrahim Alaie

Authors
  1. Roghaye Elmi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arezoo Nejaei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Amir Farshi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Mohammad Ebrahim Ramazani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Ebrahim Alaie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arezoo Nejaei.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Elmi, R., Nejaei, A., Farshi, A. et al. Comparison of two methods of neutralization and wet air oxidation for treating wastewater spent caustic produced by oil refineries. Environ Monit Assess 193, 854 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09625-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09625-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation