Regeneration of spent polymer resins in oily water treatment systems by application of nanoemulsion

Abstract

In step production of oil wells, along with oil, also produces a large volume of water oily, which must be properly treated for disposal. Several absorbent materials have been developed and are highly effective for this purpose. However, they need regeneration when they reach saturation, because their discharge after each saturation cycle makes the process unfeasible from the cost and environmental standpoints. In this study, we investigated the efficiency of regenerating a methyl methacrylate-divinylbenzene polymer resin spent in a system for continuous treatment of oily wastewater, in loco. The regeneration fluid used was an O/W nanoemulsion, which contain only 8% of environmentally friendly solvent and 80% of synthetic marine water. A kinetics desorption study of oil saturated resin was performed to identify the best times for desorption using the nanoemulsion. After one cycle of saturation, cleaning and resaturation, was observed that regeneration efficiency in continuous process of around 40%.