EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT

WHAT IS EFFLUENT TREATMENT PLANT

Its producing operations wastewater that may include water produced with crude oil, rain water, and wash down water are handled and treated. The water must be separated from the crude oil and disposed of in a manner that does not violate established environmental regulations.

In most onshore locations the water cannot be disposed of on the surface, due to possible salt contamination, and must be injected into an acceptable disposal formation

TREATING VESSELS

The function of all water treating equipment is to cause the oil droplets that exist in the water continuous phase to separate from the water phase so they can then be removed

SETTLING TANK

Most commonly used water treating equipment items rely on the forces of gravity to separate the oil droplets from the water continuous phase. In gravity separation units, the difference in specific gravity causes the oil to float to the surface of the water. These items are normally designed to provide long residence times during which coalescence and gravity separation can occur.

API SEPARATOR

The API Separator have the wiper blades which skimmes the oil collected on the surface due to the gravity separation and the clean oil settles at the bottom.

CPI SEPARATOR These are skim tanks or vessels that use internal plates to improve

the gravity separation process. All of these depend on gravity separation to allow the oil droplets to rise to a plate surface where coalescence and capture occur

The oil sheet rises upward counter to the water flow and is concentrated in the top of each corrugation. When the oil reaches the end of the plate pack, it is collected in a channel and brought to the oil-water interface. The parallel plates absorbs the oil and forms a layer and as the layer becomes thicker and thicker it floats from the bottom

AIR FLOATION TANK

Floatation units employ a process in which fine gas bubbles are generated and dispersed in water, where they attach themselves to oil droplets or solid particulates. The gas bubbles then help to lift the oil to the water surface for collection. Gas bubble/oil droplet attachment can be enhanced with the use of polyelectrolyte chemicals. These flotation aid chemicals can also be used to cause bubble/oil droplet attachments.

HYDROCYCLONES

Hydrocyclones, sometimes called enhanced gravity separators, use centrifugal force to remove oil droplets from oily water. The centrifugal force cause the oil to move out through a small-diameter reject port located in the head of the hydrocyclone. Clean water is removed through the downstream outlet.

Further activated charcoal is used for the finishing touch of the water. It extracts all the finer particles. Cartridge filter vessels are also used for finer touch.

ADVANCES

Advanced Ewater Treatment may be broken into three major categories by the type of process flow scheme utilized: 

Tertiary Treatment Physical-Chemical Treatment Combined Biological-Physical Treatment

Tertiary treatment may be defined as any treatment process in which unit operations are added to the flow scheme following conventional secondary treatment.  Additions to conventional secondary treatment could be as simple as the addition of a filter for suspended solids removal or as complex as the addition of many unit processes for organic, suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorous removal.

Physical-chemical treatment is defined as a treatment process in which biological and physical-chemical processes are intermixed to achieve the desired effluent.

Combined biological-physical-chemical treatment is differentiated from tertiary treatment in that in tertiary treatment any unit processes are added after conventional biological treatment, while in combined treatment, biological and physical-chemical treatment are mixed. 

PILOT TESTING

Early activity needed to plan the full-scale plant improvements is detailed pilot testing. This is being done via construction and operation of a small-scale "pilot project." The pilot project is studying and testing various treatment methods and alternatives in order to identify the treatment technology that is the most feasible, cost-effective and efficient.