ABATEMENT OF INORGANIC NITROGEN IN THE PETROLEUM REFINING INDUSTRY USING HIGH RATE BIOFILTRATION

Petroleum industries have to satisfy to ever increasing environmental demands in terms of air, water and soil quality criteria. Among the substances identified by USEPA in the recent NPDES changes (July 2000), inorganic nitrogen is now a source of degradation for receiving waters and requires an additional end-of-pipe treatment. This paper will present the results of a pilot scale study where inorganic nitrogen was abated on-site with a high-rate biofiltration process. During the six months of the pilot study, multiple other parameters than inorganic nitrogen were measured, suspended solids (SS) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), and those results will also be presented. Concentration abatement when the high-rate biofiltration process was fully started up was of 75%.