1 reply to this topic

[mbeychok]

In most petroleum refineries, the effluent wastewater treatment includes:

(1) Primary Treatment consisting of an API or CPI Oil-Water separator. (API is an acronym for American Petroleum Institute and CPI is an acronym for Corrugated Plate Interceptor). No chemical reaction is involved, so no kinetics are involved.

(2) Secondary Treatment consisting of additional oil-water separation using Dissolved Air Flotation or Dissolved Nitrogen Flotation. No chemical reaction is involved so no kinetics are involved.

(3) Tertiary Treatment, if any is included, may be one or more of various processes. However, the most prevalent tertiary treatment is probably biological treatment such as an activated sludge unit or trickling filter unit. Kinetics is indeed involved in the design of such biological treatment units.

If you want to learn more about refinery waste treatment, you should read this book:

Beychok, Milton, "Aqueous Wastes From Petroleum and Petrochemical Plants", published by John Wiley and Sons, 1967.

Most large university libraries have a copy of the above book.