Environment friendly treatment of petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated formation water: Mechanisms and consequences for degradation and adsorption

Abstract

An innovative approach to remediate oilfield produced water, a major environmental pollutant from the oil and gas industry has been demonstrated in this study. The technique combines: invasive wetland plant (Pistia stratiotes) used in absorbing and metabolizing hydrocarbons present in the oilfield formation water, biosurfactant from indigenous Bacteria making them more accessible for degradation and fertilizer NPK act as biostimulator. The main objectives of this technique are to remediate Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) in an environmentally friendly manner to be a potential for the petroleum sector. The success of the technique is supported by the results of GC-MS analysis, which detected no hydrocarbon compounds in treated water. However, after treatment using the proposed combination 90.1% of the TPH was degraded, and the remaining 9.9% was adsorbed by the biomaterials. Thus, this study would present a potential breakthrough in the ongoing battle against pollution caused by the oil and gas industry.