Treatment of crude oil contaminated wastewater via an electrochemical reaction. Issue 4 (9th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sharma, Khanindra; Kalita, Suravi; Sarma, Neelotpal Sen; Devi, Arundhuti
• Is Part Of: RSC advances. Volume 10:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 1925
• Page End: 1936
• Publication Date: 2020-01-09
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540.5
• DOI: 10.1039/c9ra09202a
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2046-2069

Abstract

Abstract : A novel electrochemical reaction was developed for the treatment of formation water and subsequently ZnO nanoparticles were synthesised in the in situ condition and further used as an adsorbing material for petroleum hydrocarbons. Abstract : A cost-effective and catalyst-free approach for the treatment of oil field formation water has been extensively explored in this work. ZnO NPs were synthesized via an electrochemical reaction using hydrogen peroxide as the electrolyte. The XRD and TEM analysis depicted the high purity and wurtzite hexagonal structure of ZnO NPs with an average size of 35 ± 5 nm. TGA data showed the thermal stability of the synthesized material up to 750 °C. The efficiency of the removal of hydrocarbons from formation water by the combination of electrochemical reaction and synthesized ZnO NPs was monitored by GC-MS and FTIR. GC-MS analysis revealed that out of 214 compounds (present in the untreated sample), a total of 131 compounds were adsorbed by ZnO NPs. Further, the absence of any compound in the chromatogram of the treated sample attests that the rest of the compounds were completely or partially degraded by electrochemical degradation reaction. Moreover, this technique overcomes some of the important drawbacks of the existing techniques in the area of electrochemical research, such as the generation of toxic byproducts, unwanted side reactions, and involvement of hazardous chemicals.