2012 International Conference on Environmental Quality
Concern, Control and Conservation (EQC 2012)
Secondary Pollution by Volatile Organic Compounds in Wastewater
Treatment Plant of Petrochemical Industry
Yi-Cyuan Chen1*, Chun-Hsien Shih1
1
Graduate Student of the Department of Marine Environmental Engineering, National Kaohsiung Marine
University, 142 Haijhan Road, Nan-Tzu District, Kaohsiung 81143, Taiwan.
*e-mail: free_love520520@yahoo.com.tw
Abstract
With the increasing industrial activities, a large number of contaminants and pollutants were discharged into
the environment. Pollutants concentration and impact on environment need to be reduced. One of ways is to
construct wastewater treatment plant to reduce the large number of wastewater generated by industrial activities.
In the case of this study, according to construct conditions and cost considerations; most of plants were designed
unclassified method to collected wastewater. Although those cases would fit in the EPA standard, it might
influence the environment .One of pollutants of treatment plants are the volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
VOCs were not only hydrocarbons from the general process in the petrochemical industry, but also had form of
the chlorinated volatile organic compounds (Cl-VOCs). It’s a main high-toxic substances (Zhengwen Xi, 2008),
if the large number of wastewater generated by the petrochemical industry was not totally treated, water
environment can be contaminated seriously.
The research investigated about petrochemical industry for wastewater treatment, which is in Renwu Ares
of northern Kaohsiung. We did monitoring for the concentration of Cl- VOCs in the wastewater treatment
system from May to December in 2011, and to estimate whether the pollutant from treated water influenced the
aqua system. Because Cl- VOCs was volatile easy, therefore the VOC-emissions issues are existing in the
wastewater treatment plants (Zhu et al., 1999). The main operations of plants are the opening biological and
physical treatment, not only water body has highest disturbance, but the aeration in the bioreactors also causes a
large number of Cl- VOCs. So, in the case of study we will collect Cl- VOCs gas at the top of treatment reactors
and in the water, and then we compare the pollutants compounds and concentrations together. After that, we
explore whether the Cl- VOCs can cause environment secondary pollution.
The results of study showed, first the initial concentration (15,189 μg/L) of wastewater decreased to 187
μg/L after treatment the plants emitted to the river and indicated the removal efficiency reach more than 90%.
Second, the monitoring results showed influent wastewater concentration is too high; it could be due to the
unstable treatment process. It will not only concentration was not fit in with self-controlled standards of the
influent plants, but also might causes highest concentration pollution emission. Third, Part of air samples were
collected from the open element found that concentration of Cl- VOCs was reach to 4,377μg/m3. The
characteristics of units with high pressure, high flow and high disturbance actually causes secondary pollutant
problems. According the research, we will use of monitoring data with the estimated patterns to improve the
accuracy dates with fugitive concentrations. In addition, we combined them with controlling standards for
expecting to aid industry to reduce the issue of secondary pollutant to environment.
Keywords: Wastewater Treatment Plant, Hazardous Material, Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compounds,
Processing Efficiency, Processing Unit.
References:
Cheng, W., Hsu, S., & Chou, M. (2008). “Volatile organic compound emissions from wastewater treatment
2012 International Conference on Environmental Quality
Concern, Control and Conservation (EQC 2012)
plants in Taiwan: Legal regulations and costs of control”. Journal of Environmental Management, 88(4),
1485-1494.
Zhu, H., Keener, T. C., Bishop, P. L., Orton, T. L., and Siddiqui, K. F. (1998). “Emissions of Hazardous Air
Pollutants from Aeration Tanks”. Env. Progress, 17 (3), 148-153.