Polymeric resins have been used as alternative materials for treating oily waters from the petroleum industry, which have already been treated by conventional methods. The objective of this work was to evaluate the purification degree of synthetic oily waters when treated in fixed bed columns packed with hydrophilic/lipophilic resins. Synthetic oily waters were prepared and fluorimetry was used to determine the total grease and oil content (TGOC) of the fresh oily water and the oily water eluted by the column. The results showed that the treated oily water presented a TGOC close to zero ppm. The kinetic study showed that the contaminant removal efficiency slightly depends on the system elution flow rate; optimum removal values were reached at a 7.0 mL/min flow rate. The passage of a water volume 11,087 times the volume of the column bed was not sufficient to observe its complete saturation. Preliminary tests of column regeneration and re-use showed its potential to be used for more than 1 cycle of oily water treatment.
Oily water; amphiphilic material; fluorescence; adsorption
