Treatment of Oil Refinery Wastewaters with
Granular and Powdered Activated Carbon
PASCHAL B. DeJOHN, Project Leader
ALAN D. ADAMS, Technical Specialist
ICI United States Inc.
Specialty Chemicals Division
Wilmington, Delaware  19897
INTRODUCTION
As refineries strive to achieve "best practicable control technology currently available"
by July 1, 1977, and "best available technology economically achievable" by July 1, 1983,
the use of both granular and powdered activated carbon to treat total refinery effluents or
selected wastewater streams within the refinery comple> will become increasingly
warranted.
ICI United States Inc. has conducted numerous comparative pilot granular carbon
studies, and several full scale in-plant powdered carbon evaluations to determine the
effectiveness of carbon in solving refinery wastewater problems.
GRANULAR ACTIVATED CARBON
Comparative Adsorption Performance of Lignite and Bituminous Coal Carbons in
Oil Refinery Wastes
For granular activated carbon to be an effective treatment mode, it must provide: I)
sufficient ability to adsorb impurities to meet effluent standards; 2) reasonable (5-10% total)
regeneration losses; 3) minimal operating problems (pressure drop); and 4) reasonable
operating costs.
Studies conducted by ICI United States Inc. were run to determine if granular carbon
could meet the above criteria, and also to find out if any performance differences exist
between the two major commercially available carbon types.
Tables I and II show data from studies conducted on the total refinery effluent at two
East Coast oil refineries where equal volumes of lignite and bituminous coal carbons were
evaluated.
Table 111 is data from a study conducted on a selected sulfonate wastestream at a West
Coast oil refinery. Again equal volumes of lignite and bituminous coal carbons were
evaluated.
In each study, the feed concentration to the columns containing the lignite and
bituminous coal carbons was the same. Breakthrough was the required pollutant
percentage removal, directed by each individual refinery, based on the effluent standard
each was required to meet.
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