MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY FOR TREATING DECANTED OILY WASTEWATER FROM MARINE OIL SPILL OPERATIONS: COMPARISON BETWEEN MEMBRANE FILTRATION VS MEMBRANE BIOREACTOR

Abstract

Current Canadian oil spill regulations require that all liquids collected from an oil spill be taken to shore to an intermediate storage facility for later disposal. This practice severely constrains the response capacity, and efficiency of oil recovery since most of the liquid collected comprises of water. Onsite treatment of decanted oily seawater would benefit oil recovery operations by increasing vessel storage space and reducing the cycle of trips to shore. Membrane technology has proven to be effective at treating oily wastewater generated from the industry; therefore is a good candidate for in-situ treatment of oily wastewater generated from marine oil spills. In this study, the treatment efficiency of a pilot-scale membrane filtrations system and a bench-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) were compared for the treatment of oily seawater. The main parameters that were considered in this study are total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH).