Evaluation of Wastewater Treatment Plant in Pollution Control of Petrochemical Industries: A Case Study: of Abadan Petrochemical Company

The function of petrochemical wastewater treatment plants should be evaluatedintermittently, due to the increase in production and new effluent flow and organic load to the wastewater. In this study, the efficiency of a petrochemical wastewater treatment plant has been evaluated by sampling and determination of major pollutants of wastewater during six months. The results showed that physical, chemical andbiological processes used in the plant, succeeded to decrease the COD mean value of wastewater to 80 mgL–1 level. The average overall yields of the total hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, phenols and sulfides removal were measured as 77%, 97%, 99.8% and 94.2%, respectively. The majority of volatile organic compounds (88.5%) and sulfides (78.5%) were decreased by stripping and chemical oxidation. The results showed that the existing wastewater treatment plant was successfully assessed to decrease the organic pollutants, while total suspended solids increased slightly during treatment processes although remained within the authorized limit.