| Abstract Data reconciliation and mass balance analysis were
conducted for the first time to improve the data obtained from a
petrochemical wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), and the results were applied to evaluate the performance of the plant. Daily
average values for 209 days from the inlet and outlet of the plant
obtained from WWTP documentation center along with the results of four sampling runs in this work were used for data reconciliationandperformanceevaluationoftheplant.Resultsshowed
that standard deviation and relative errors in the balanced data of
eachmeasurementdecreased,especiallyfortheprocesswastewater from 24.5 to 8.6 % for flow and 24.5 to 1.5 % for chemical
oxygen demand (COD). The errors of measured data were
−137 m3/day (−4.41 %) and 281 kg/day (7.92 %) for flow and
COD, respectively. According to the balanced data, the removal
rates of COD and 5-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5)
through the aeration unit were equal to 37 and 46 %, respectively.
In addition, the COD and BOD5 concentrations were reduced by
about 61.9 % (2137 kg/day) and 78.1 % (1976 kg/day), respectively, prior to the biological process. At the same time, the
removal rates of benzene, toluene, and styrene were 56, 38, and
69%,respectively.Theresultsrevealedthatabout40%ofinfluent
benzene(75.5kg/day)isemittedtotheambientairattheoverhead
oftheequalizationbasin.Itcanbeconcludedthatthevolatilization
of organic compounds is the basic mechanism for the removal of
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and it corresponds to the
main part of total COD removal from the WWTP. |