Evaluation of the efficiency of polyethylenimine as flocculants in the removal of oil present in produced water
2018
Santos, Allan S. | Oliveira, Luis Fernando S. | Marques, Anny M.T. | Silva, Douglas C.A. | Mansur, Claudia R.E.
Branched polyethylenimines (PEIs) present primary, secondary and tertiary amines along their backbone, making this polymer very pH-influenced: in an acid medium, the amines will be protonated to a certain extent and can be called polyelectrolytes. The objective of this work was to study and evaluate the performance of PEI as a flocculant polymer in the treatment of oily water from the petroleum industry. An anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate, was used in conjunction with PEI for this purpose. Removal efficiency tests were performed on a Jartest and on a bench scale Dissolved Air Flotation system (DAF). Two PEIs of different molar masses (PEI HW Mn ∼ 60,000 and PEI LW Mn ∼ 10,000) were used as cationic flocculants under acidic conditions for the removal of oil present in the synthetic produced water. Polyethylenimine showed good oil removal efficiencies. It is important to note that no references were found in literature on the use of polyethylenimines in the treatment of oily water from the petroleum industry, and the search for more efficient flocculants in oil removal was one of the motivators of this work.
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