Iraqi Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Vol.12 No.1 (March 2011) ISSN: 1997-4884 Oily Wastewater Treatment Using Expanded Beds of Activated Carbon and Zeolite Sawsan A. M. Mohammed, Ibtihage Faisal and Maha M. Alwan Chemical Engineering Department – College of Engineering – University of Baghdad – Iraq ABSTRACT Two types of adsorbents were used to treat oily wastewater, activated carbon and zeolite. The removal efficiencies of these materials were compared to each other. The results showed that activated carbon performed some better properties in removal of oil. The experimental methods which were employed in this investigation included batch and column studies. The former was used to evaluate the rate and equilibrium of carbon and zeolie adsorption, while the latter was used to determine treatment efficiencies and performance characteristics. Expanded bed adsorber was constructed in the column studies. In this study, the adsorption behavior of vegetable oil (corn oil) onto activated carbon and zeolite was examined as a function of the concentration of the adsorbate, contact time, adsorbent dosage and amount of coagulant salt(calcium sulphate) added . The adsorption data was modeled with Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption isotherms. and it was found that the adsorption process on activated carbon and zeolite fit the Freundlich isotherm model. The amount of oil adsorbed increased with increasing the contact time, but longer mixing duration did not increase residual oil removal from wastewater due to the coverage of the adsorbent surface with oil molecules. It was found that as the dosage of adsorbent increased, the percentage of residual oil removal also increased. The effects of adsorbent type and amount of coagulant salt(calcium sulphate) added on the breakthrough curve were studied in details in the column studies. Expanded bed behavior was modeled using the Richardson-Zaki correlation between the superficial velocity of the feed stream and the void fraction of the bed at moderate Reynolds number. Keywords: Oil removal; adsorption; expanded beds; wastewater treatment; zeolite, activated carbon. Iraqi Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering University of Baghdad College of Engineering Oily Wastewater Treatment Using Expanded Beds of Activated Carbon and Zeolite Vol.12 No.1 (March 2011) INTRODUCTION One of the most challenging problems today is the removal of oil from wastewater. large amounts of wastewater are generated by industrial companies that produce or handel oil and other organic compounds, both immiscible and miscible in water. Oily wastewater discharged into the environment causes serious pollution problems since the biodegradability of oil is very low and oily wastewater hinders biological processing at sewage treatment plants. Petroleum and petrochemical plants are potential oil sources for pollution inland water caused by runoff from oil fields, refineries and process effluent [1]. Removal of dissolved and emulsified oils is achieved by using activated carbon or membrane filtration. The effluent from those operations contains almost no oil. Several types of sorbents have been studied for the removal of oil from water by a packed bed filter such as sawdust, activated carbon, peat, bentonite, and organoclay [2]. Current technologies for oil removal include filtration, gravity separation, induced floatation, ultrafiltration, adsorption, and biological treatment. An oil and water mixture can be classified as free oil for oil droplets larger than 150 μm, dispersed oil with oil droplets in the range of 20-150 μm, and emulsified oil with oil droplets smaller than 20 μm. A wastewater, where the oil in the oil- water mixture is not present in the form of droplets is said to be soluble [3]. The principles of liquid-solid fluidization have been extensively studied. A key work in the field was presented by Richardson and Zaki [3] more than 50 years ago. The equation predicts a linear correlation between the logarithms of superficial fluid velocity ( 0 V ) and the void fraction of the bed ( )1( s  for fluidized bed [4].   ts VnV log1loglog 0   ………. (1) where s  and t V are the solid fraction of the expanded bed and the terminal settling velocity of the particle at infinite dilution  0 s  , respectively. The superficial velocity 0 V is determined by dividing the volumetric flow rate of the feed stream by the cross sectional area of the column. The solid fraction s  of the expanded bed at height H can be obtained by: H H s 0 0   ………… (2) Where 0  , and 0 H , are the solid fraction and height of the bed at zero flow stream, respectively. Wen and Yu [5] estimated the terminal velocity at moderate Reynolds number using the following equation:   p ll lp t d g V 31 22 225 4             ……….... (3) for 0.4