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Oily Wastewater
& Oily Water Treatment

ESMIL Process Systems Ltd. specialises in the treatment of difficult wastes. ESMIL has installed oily water treatment systems for the worldwide oil and gas industry for the past 25 years at over 50 installations in the U.K. and Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Russia, including:

• Kuwait National Petroleum Company, Kuwait (oil refinery, 220m?hr oil separation)
• Petrofac Ltd., Siberia (240 m?/day produced water)
• Shell Oil, U.K. (oil refinery, 420 m?/h oil separation).

Solids and oil separation technologies have been used across a range of applications, at installations both onshore and offshore.

• Produced water - recovered during the separation of crude oil.
• Desalter water - generated during crude oil washing.
• Ballast water - for incoming sea tankers.
• Terminal and refinery process drainage - oil spills / general waste

Oily water may contain free separable oil, emulsified oil and soluble oil. ESMIL use separation technologies that are simple to maintain and operate and have few moving parts for optimal reliability. The general treatment solution adopted by ESMIL uses conventional separation processes for the removal of bulk contaminants, with subsequent state-of-the-art Membrane Technology and adsorption processes to polish effluent to very high standards where required.

Free oil removal can be achieved using corrugated plate interceptors (CPI's). CPI gravity separators typically perform at >75% efficiency, with concurrent removal of gross solids. For higher removal efficiency, dissolved air flotation systems can supplement CPI treatment to achieve >95% free oil removal. For some applications, bulk oil and suspended solids are removed using alternative technologies including hydrocyclones and sand filtration.

For optimal separation, Membrane Technology can be used to recover (free and emulsified) oil and eliminate solids to concentrations below detection limits. ESMIL employs highly oleophobic membranes to achieve ultrafiltration. These membranes are highly resistant to fouling by free oil and reduce contamination to 3 mg/l, prior to granular activated carbon to further polish the permeate. Separated free oils can be recovered on site readily, including that removed by ultrafiltration. The resultant cake can be sent to landfill, whilst filtrate can be recycled through the process, discharged or reused on site.