Water refinery industry, hazards

This chapter will review basics on the hazards of water and steam within the chemical and petroleum refinery industries. To the youthful, this chapter can be instructive with its eye-opening reality of fundamentals. To more seasoned individuals these case histories can serve as a reminder of the potential hazards of water and steam through vivid examples that were costly in disappointments, dollars, professional reputation, and injuries. 

Cyanide compounds are useful to society in terms of their key role in synthetic and industrial processes, for certain fumigation and agricultural uses, and for some therapeutic applications (Ballantyne and Marrs 1987). Cyanides are present in effluents from iron and steel processing plants, petroleum refineries, and metal-plating plants, and constitute a hazard to aquatic ecosystems in certain waste-receiving waters (Smith et al. 1979) and to livestock (USEPA 1980 Towill et al. 1978). Cyanide serves no useful purpose in the human body, yet it is present in our food, air, and water (Becker 1985). 

The Microtox test has been used for determination of toxicity of wastewater effluents, complex industrial wastes (oil refineries, pulp and paper), fossil fuel process water, sediments extracts, sanitary landfill, and hazard waste leachates [19]. 

PACT can be applied to municipal and industrial waste waters as well as to groundwater and leachates containing hazardous pollutants. PACT has successfully treated various industrial wastewaters, including chemical plant, dye production, pharmaceutical, refinery, and synthetic fuel wastewaters. 

Phenol and its compounds are ubiquitous water pollutants that are present in the effluents of a variety of chemical industries such as coal refineries, phenol manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and industries of resin, paint, dyeing, textile, leather, petrochemical, pulp mill, etc. [9]. Phenols are known to be toxic and also, some of them, hazardous carcinogenic that can accumulate in the food chain. Phenolic compounds are a public health risk and they are heavily regulated in many countries, and must be removed from wastewater before they are discharged into the environment [10], For example, a 10 days consumption of polluted water with low concentrations (3 ppm) of 2,4-dichlorophenol can cause vomiting, paralysis, and even death in children [11, 12]. Phenol, 2-chlorophenol, and 2,4-dichlorophenol are ranked within the 250 most hazardous pollutants [13]. In addition, chlorophenols are commonly found in chlorinated water, since phenol can react with chlorine [14],... 

Owing to the bombing, the wastewater treatment plant in Pancevo southern industrial zone stopped working. It is located in the petrochemical complex and is designed to treat wastewater mechanically, chemically and biologically before its release into the canal. This plant released 98,229 m of wastewater from the petrochemical complex and 69,761 m of wastewater from the oil refinery into the canal. This water contained hazardous and harmful substances from these factories [35, 3]. 

---