Oil Recovery from Oilfield Produced Water Using Zinc Oxide Nano Particle as Catalyst in Batch and Continuous System

This article describes the design of photo catalyst reactor for oil removing from produced water. Real produced water containing a combination of organic compounds was treated with zinc oxide nanoparticles. In this study, ultraviolet radiations were used to find the efficiency of removing the oil content from the water produced that brought from the Al-Ahdab oilfield in kut/ Iraq by advanced oxidation process (AOP) using (ZnO/UV) in batch system and continuous system. In batch system were studied the effect of zinc oxide concentration (nanoparticles), time of irradiation, and pH. The highest removal rate of oil from the produced water (100%) was obtained during the following optimal conditions: ZnO NPs as catalyst = 55 mg/L, pH =3, at the time of irradiation of 90 minutes in batch experiments. In the continuous system, the effects of flowrate, number of UV-A lamp and time of reaction were studied, the results obtained were the efficiency of decomposition decreases with increasing the flow rate of solution in reactor, the maximum removal efficiency of the process (ZnO/UV) was 80% at 20 mL/min and irradiation time 120 min. In general, zinc oxide is beneficial through its high oil adsorption capacity in addition, It lowers the amount of oil in the produced water.