A review on recent developments and future prospects in the treatment of oily petroleum refinery wastewater by adsorption

Abstract

A vital by-product of the petroleum industry, oily wastewater, presents a serious environmental problem owing to its complex composition and considerable volume. This includes a wide range of contaminants, such as oil, heavy metals, organic waste, and aromatic hydrocarbons. In order to tackle the issue at hand, this review article investigates new developments in adsorption technology as a potentially effective way to remediate oily refinery wastewater. It explores the numerous adsorbent materials, and the factors that affect the process in both batch and continuous systems, regeneration ability, mechanism of adsorption as well as the use of integrated processes. The review explores different adsorbent materials, including promising new options like nanomaterials and composites. Studies presented from literature show the modelling of isotherms onto Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms, and pseudo-second-order kinetics. Future studies ought to focus on developing affordable adsorbents as well as utilizing real wastewater samples to guarantee the adsorption process's viability from an economic and environmental standpoint for practical applications.