title: Achieving the Great Lakes Initiative mercury limits in oil refinery effluent.
abstract: To meet the stringent Great Lakes Initiative (GLI) wastewater discharge mercury (Hg) limit of 1.3 ppt (ng/L), mercury removal technologies need to be identified and investigated. The goals of this study were to (1) identify and assess available wastewater treatment technologies for mercury removal from an oil refinery wastewater; and (2) conduct bench-scale tests to provide comparable, transparent, and uniform results to assess their performance at low mercury concentrations. The study found that many tested technologies were able to achieve the GLI mercury target concentration at the bench-scale, albeit with different efficiencies and engineering implications. These results demonstrate that at this scale there is no fundamental physical or chemical barrier to achieving < 1.3 ng Hg/L in the tested wastewater. The study also found that some technologies were effective on particulate mercury whereas others were effective on dissolved mercury. One emerging treatment technology was found to be effective on both particulate and dissolved mercury. Three mercury-removal technologies--ultrafiltration (particulate mercury), adsorption (dissolved mercury), and an emerging reactive filtration technology (particulate and dissolved mercury)--are recommended for further study. This research offers treatment alternatives for different forms of mercury in an oil refinery wastewater, which might be applicable to other types of mercury-containing wastewater.
authors: Argonne National Laboratory, Energy Systems Division, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
authors: Meltem
authors: M
authors: Urgun-Demirtas
authors: Patricia
authors: P
authors: Gillenwater
authors: M Cristina
authors: MC
authors: Negri
authors: YuPo
authors: Y
authors: Lin
authors: Seth
authors: S
authors: Snyder
authors: Richard
authors: R
authors: Doctor
authors: Linda
authors: L
authors: Pierce
authors: Jorge
authors: J
authors: Alvarado
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D002617:Chemical Industry; D005374:Filtration; D060106:Lakes; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis*; D010578:Petroleum; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014481:United States; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D008628:Mercury