Chemical Treating Plant for Refinery
Waste Water from White Oils and
Petroleum Sulfonates
H.   SCHINDLER
Daugherty Refinery
A Division of L. Sonneborn Sons, Inc.
Petrolia, Pa.
'
Waste disposal problems have beset the petroleum refiner since the
early days of the industry, although the character of the waste has
changed appreciably from the time when gasoline was considered a waste
product and was run into the creek to get rid of it. The petroleum in¬
dustry has come a long way since then and has learned to think along
lines of conservation, not only of its own resources, but also of the
streams into which it has to discharge waste water.
Because of its greater general importance, the problem of separating
mechanically dispersed oil from water has been given much study by
the industry working cooperatively on the Committee on Disposal of
Refinery Waste of the American Petroleum Institute. This work has
resulted in the development of a separator design which has proven
successful in most instances. No generally applicable solution for the
disposal of water soluble compounds formed during chemical refining
processes has been developed. This is quite understandable when the
diversity of refining procedures and the variations in type and concen¬
tration of the resulting waste products are considered.
It can be reasoned that use of the same refining chemical will give
rise to reaction products of the same general class even if the individual
compounds formed, as well as their concentration in the waste, differs
from case to case, depending on the hydrocarbon fraction treated. Conse¬
quently, waste disposal methods also should have general applicability
to all those processes which use the same treating chemical. For this
reason, it was thought desirable to report on the procedure which has
been successfully developed for treating waste water containing water
soluble sulfonates and originating during the manufacture of White
Oils by treating petroleum fractions with sulfuric acid. The process is
practiced at the Daugherty Refinery, Petrolia, Pa., of L. Sonneborn
Sons, Inc.
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