COMPARISON BETWEEN STRIPPING AND MEMBRANE TREATMENTS FOR PETROLEUM REFINERY SOUR WATER

Petroleum refineries have a large importance in world business. Their main function is to refine crude oil, converting it to several products such as gasoline, diesel oil, LPG and fuel oil. In refinery operations, water is an important source of purification of the crude oil. However, after being used the water becomes contaminated by toxic residues that are dangerous to the environment if disposed incorrectly. Another option is purifying the water so that can be used again in other refining operation. For this alternative the contaminated water is referred as ‘’sour water’’. To avoid environmental and industrial risks related to its use, the refineries seek for a solution to their problem by applying the effluent treatment. In this scenario, the industries use modeling software to evaluate the benefit to cost ratio for the treatment of sour water. Lastly, this work has the objective of evaluating and comparing alternative processes such as stripping and membrane treatment, by formulating mathematical models that are going to be simulated by software used by Chemical Engineers, called ASPEN PLUS , and an analysis of its preliminary cost.