Organo-clay/anthracite filtration for oil removal

A bentonite organo-clay/anthracite mixture in the granular form (EC-100) wa s used in filtration (column) studies in treating four representative oil-i n-water emulsions. The oil-in-water emulsions used were as follows: Standar d Mineral Oil (SMO), Kutwell 45 (KUT) and Valcool (VAL), two cutting oils; and Refinery Effluent (RE) from the Co-operative Oil Refinery, Regina, Sask atchewan. The concentrations of oil in the oily waters varied from 8.3 to 6 9.3 mg/L. Eight-hour column studies were conducted in a 19 mm ID, 450 mm/12 00 mm long cast acrylic pipe with an organo-clay/anthracite depth of 300 mn i/1,000 mm. The SMO, KUT, and VAL oil-in-water emulsions were pumped into t he column at four flow rates of 3, 6, 9, and 12 mL/min (0.3, 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0 gpm/ft(2), respectively). Column breakthrough studies were conducted in a 19 mm ID, 1,200 mm long cast acrylic pipe using the organo-clay/anthraci te mixture of 1,000 mm depth. The study was conducted for SMO, KUT, VAL and RE oil-in-water emulsions with a flow rate of 12 mL/mim (1 gpm/ft(2)). The eight-hour column tests with 300 mm bed depth and all oil-in-water emulsio ns indicated that generally, the oil removal efficiencies decreased with an increase in flow rate. The percentage reduction in oil removal efficiency was 29 and 37 for SMO, 51 and 59 for KUT, and 9 and 57 for VAL when the flo w rate was increased from 3 mL/min to 6 and 9 mL/min, respectively. The res ults of the eight-hour experiments with a 1,000 mm depth of organo-clay/ant hracite bed and with a flow rate of 12 mL/min showed that oil removal effic iency for SMO, KUT, and VAL varied between 65 and 70%. In the case of RE, w hich is a treated and highly stable emulsion, the oil removal efficiency wa s found to be 99.5%. The results from the breakthrough studies clearly indi cated that the Thomas equation provides a reasonable fit of the data. The o il-sorption capacities (x/m) based on a mass balance analysis were found to be 0.0036, 0.0019, 0.0015, and 0.0018 for SMO, KUT, VAL, and RE, respectiv ely. The analysis of the breakthrough data using the Thomas model resulted in similar values of x/m. The results also showed that uptake of oil by an organo-clay/anthracite mixture can well be described by a simple equation i nvolving time, such as Weber and Morris model.