Water pinch analysis in oil refinery using regeneration reuse and recycling consideration Original Research Article

The aim of this study was finding an appropriate way to minimize water utility in the petroleum refineries due to high rate of water consumption. For this purpose, Tehran oil refinery was well studied. In this research, three contaminants including suspended solid, hardness and COD were considered to analyze feasibilities of regeneration reuse and recycling for water and wastewater minimization in the water network. These contaminants once were analyzed two by two based on their mass transfer. As a result, in the targeting based on suspended solid and hardness, the amount of freshwater was reduced about 40%. This amount for suspended solid and COD was equal to 37% and for COD and hardness was 39%. In the next stage, three contaminants were analyzed simultaneously and the amount of freshwater was reduced to about 17.35%. Clearly, compared to triple contaminans consideration, water minimization through double contaminants was more considerable.