Desenvolvimento de membranas cerâmicas para separação de óleo/água.

Abstract

The presence of oil in water produced during the petrol extraction can cause serious problems during the discharge in the environment as well as in the re-injection in the oil well. The conventional methods used to remove oil from water can not clean with efficiency and low cost. So, the search for new alternatives to solve this problem is the motivation of this work. This study is part of a series of researches supported by Agência Nacional de Petróleo (ANP), with the aim to optimize ali the steps in the oil production. The aim of this work is to make ceramic membrane to be applied in the oil/water separation. Firstly, it was prepared two types of tubular alumina membranes, called type I and type 2, with different pore size of approximately 0.9nm and 15, 48nm, respectively. The minimal efficiency of these membranes was approximately 97.5% and 93.8% for membrane type I and type 2, respectively. However, the membrane type 2 shown a flux 40 times greater than the membrane type 1. To improve the use of the membrane type 2 it was coating the internai surface with a thin layer of zircônia to get better efficiency without to decrease the flux. The zircônia powder was prepared with success by Pechini method and it was obtained a crystalline zircônia with agglomerates that indicate the use to make ultrafiltration membranes. To obtain the zircônia layer it was prepared dispersion and deposited in the internai surface of the membrane type 2 by dip coating technique. The zircônia layer presented a thickness of 23.88}im, a flux grater than the alumina type 1 and a minimal efficiency of 97.8%. Ali studied membrane presented oil content in permeate below 7ppm, using a maximum concentration of lOOOppm in the feed tank. The permeate water through the studied membranes is in agreement with the norms to be discharge in the environment or to be re-injected in the oil well.