Photocatalytic Treatment of Produced Water

Oman is one of the non-OPEC oil producing countries in the Middle East. About 945,000 barrels per day of oil was produced in Oman on an average in the year 2013. For extracting hydrocarbons from the reservoirs, water is injected producing a lot of oil contaminated water. The water byproduct, often called produced water, must be treated for health and environmental reasons. About 8 barrels of water is produced as a byproduct for extracting 1 barrel of oil in Oman. Produced water mainly consists of salts, heavy metals, ionic compounds, dissolved gases, hydrocarbons, treatment and operating chemicals, polymers, solid particles and microorganisms. Numerous schemes have been designed for the safe disposal of produced water but some are non-economical or complex to be applied. The different treatment technologies used for the remediation of produced water includes oil and water separation using membranes, phytoremediation, chemical treatment, electrolysis or a combination among these technologies. Nanotechnology offers an interesting alternative for the treatment of produced water, which is now catching the attention of scientists across the globe. The organic contaminants present in the produced water can be degraded by using photocatalytic processes in the presence of sun light in comparison to UV. Metal oxide nanostructures are well suited for accelerating redox reactions to mineralize organic compounds into benign byproducts. In this work we will study photocatalytic degradation of oil in water under visible light irradiation using ZnO nanostructures