Efficiency and characteristic of biological activated carbon fluidized bed for oil-field wastewater treatment

In order to find the method to improve biodegradation of oil-field wastewater, the biological activated carbon fluidized bed (BAC-FB) process for oil-field wastewater treatment in aerobic condition is studied. The results show that the process demonstrated highest removal rate with hull activated carbon (AC) as carrier and carrier concentration of 15%. The optimized HRT of the process is 5 h. COD, UV₂₅₄, UV₄₁₀, organic acid and organic compounds (GC/MS) were detected as the indexes to indicate the efficiency of oil-field wastewater treatment by this process. The results show that the removal rate of COD ranges from 25% to 45%. The average removal rates of UV₂₅₄, UV₄₁₀, organic acid are 85.9%, 73.6%, 51.5% respectively. The removal rate of oil content is almost 100%. However, alkane is difficult to remove from wastewater. Furthermore, high concentration inorganic materials such as calcium, chlorine were found to accumulate on activated carbon during treatment process, which is harm to adsorption and biodegradation of organic compound. High temperature of oil-field wastewater is also one of factors to inhibit adsorption and biodegradation of organic compound.