Frontier Petroleum Report

Use of AquaClean to Reduce Volatile Hydrocarbons and
Biochemical Oxygen Demand in Petroleum Refinery Effluent

Objective…

This study, conducted for Frontier Petroleum, was designed to demonstrate that the bacteria in AquaClean could biologically break down the BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene) components, as well as reduce the BOD, biochemical oxygen demand, of a petroleum refinery’s wastewater.

Materials and Methods…

The petroleum effluent was shaken to homogenize insoluble components in the material and 240 mL was poured into each of two separate 250 mL Erlenmeyer flasks. Ammonia nitrogen and orthophosphate levels were checked and found to be adequate (NH3-N – 29 mg/L; PO4 – 9 mg/L) so no nutrient supplementation was required. To each flask 10 mL AquaClean ACF-32 was added, and the flasks were covered with parafilm to contain the volatile hydrocarbons. The flasks were placed in an incubator shaker at 37ºC and allowed to shake at 300 rpm for 5 days before being sent out for BTEX and BOD analysis.

Results

Based on the analytical data in Table 1, the bacteria in AquaClean were able to lower the BOD and break down the components of the BTEX to undetectable levels, as indicated by the ‘u’ in the table. The analytical work was performed by a certified laboratory whose lab reports are attached as Appendix I and II.

Table 1 – Petroleum Wastewater Study – BOD and BTEX analysis (BOD in mg/L; BTEX in µg/L)

	BOD	Benzene	Toluene	Ethylbenzene	Xylenes
Initial-Flask 1	186	8920	9830	98.2	1500
Initial-Flask 2	185	8660	9520	152	1200
5 Days-Flask 1	120	0	0	0	0
5 Days-Flask2	119	0	0	0	0
% removal	35	100	100	100	100

Graph 1 – Petroleum Wastewater Study – BOD analysis