Measurement of Heavy Metals (V, Pb) in Abadan Oil Refinery Effluents and Investigation of Effects on Arvand River

Arvand river is located in the northern part of the Persian Gulf receiving water from three major rivers namely Karoon, Tigris, and Euphrate. It is vital for the economic and ecological activities of the inhabitants of Khorramshahr and Abadan as it plays a major role in the agriculture, trade and oil transportation. The length of the river is about 60 km with mean discharge is about 1434 m3/s.The river receives wastewater from different urban, agricultural and industrial sources. Amongst all of them, Abadan oil refinery is the largest industry which refines 400,000 barrel per day and produces a large amount of wastewater. Untreated wastewater is discharged directly with no treatment in to the Arvand. To study the effect of wastewater of Abadan oil refinery on the water quality of Arvand river, the present research project was conducted. For this purpose all available information concerning the production processes, kind and amounts of raw material, products, water consumption and wastewater production were collected, and carefully analyzed. After this step, 5 stations (3 on the river and 2 on the wastewater canal) were selected and sampling was conducted. Sampling period was adjusted for an annual period starting summer 2000 and terminating spring 2001. Sampling methodology was according to standard methods for water and wastewater and V and Pb were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Graphite). Results, have shown that V and Pb concentrations were increase dong the river. Also in comparing with the world standards it has been shown that the amount of Pb in the third station of the river was higher than WHO standards.