Abstract. Infrared spectrometry and spectrofluorimetry methods were correlated in the measurement of oil concentration in produced water. Furthermore, we compared colorimetry and gravimetry techniques. Adsorption experiments were performed in synthetic oily wastewaters by polymer compounds based on poly(hydroxyethyl acrylamide and polypropylene. The residual oil content was used in the techniques correlation.

In this work, in order to obtain materials with potential for treatment of water from oil industry, polymer composites were synthesized by polymerization reaction via free radical using n-hydroxymethyl acrylamide (HMAA) in the presence of post-consumer polypropylene (PP) with subsequent condensation reaction catalyzed by heating, which avoids the use of crosslinking agents. The products were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), optical microscopy (OM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Moreover, the bulk density and the degree of swelling were also determined. The synthesis was shown to be reproducible and led to achieving polymer composites with high levels of PP after usage from food packaging, which can be associated with a relatively low cost of production. The swelling capacity and the thermal stability of the composite increased with increasing PP content in the mixture.