Adsorption separation of condensate oil from produced water using ACTF prepared of oil palm leaves by batch and fixed bed techniques

Abstract

A novel method is applied to produce amorphous carbon thin film (ACTF) from oil palm leaves. The novel prepared ACTF is in the form of thin films like graphene sheets having winding surface. ACTF was characterized by different methods of characterization: FTIR, BET, SEM, EDX, TEM, and Raman. ACTF employed as an adsorbent to separate emulsified condensate oil from synthetic produced water as a treatment process before reinjection in oil reservoirs. The adsorption performance of batch and fixed bed adsorption systems were investigated. Contact time, initial concentration of condensate oil ( C o = 100–2500 mg/l) and temperature were studied by batch experiments. The obtained results indicated that the adsorption capacity and the removal efficiency increased with time up to 132.77 mg condensate/g adsorbent and 66.38% respectively, within 6 h equilibrium time at 308 K. The thermodynamic adsorption experiments conducted at 288, 308 and 318 K, referring exothermic nature of the adsorption process. The performance study of fixed bed adsorption described through the breakthrough curves concept with two parameters: column bed heights (5, 10 and 15 mm) and flow rate (2.2, 5 and 8.4 ml/min). Two models (Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models) were applied to expect different parameters of fixed bed as adsorption capacity and time need for 50% breakthrough. The results exhibited that 2.2 ml /min feed flowrate and 5 mm bed height at 1000 mg/l initial oil condensate concentration were the optimum conditions for the ACTF column. The experimental breakthrough curves showed acceptable fit with the calculated breakthrough profiles obtained by Thomas model.