Evaluating the Performance of Natural Organic Sorbent for Produced Water Treatment

Abstract

Abstract Research has shown that the most generated waste in the oil and gas industry today during exploration is the produced water (PW). Considering the volume produced, this waste cannot be discharged into the environment either as waste or for reused without proper treatment, hence this may lead to environmental concern to all the stakeholder in the oil and gas industry. In this paper, the two low-cost naturally derived banana peel powder (BPP) and animal bone powered (ABP) organic sorbents were used, capable of cleaning up the oilfield produced water. The banana peel was treated with n-hexane to eliminate all fatty acid and colour pigment then rinsed with distilled water and dried for 12 hours in a 100°C oven and crushed using a laboratory mortar and pestle to particles with a diameter of 2-3 mm and stored in a plastic container The bones used were carbonized at 400°C temperature then left for one hour in a muffle furnace before grounding the residue to a fine particle of 212μm. The two-cost effective organic sorbents were applied for oilfield produced water treatment. Pre-treatment and post-treatment produced water sample analysis were investigated to ascertain the effectiveness of the two derived organic sorbents. The result showed that as the natural organic absorbent increased, the removal efficiency increased. The results disclosed that the mixture of BPP and ABP as excellent adsorbents for the removal of oil from produced water with an oil removal efficiency of more than 98 %