Environmental control and engineering in petroleum refining

Certainly during the last three decades of the 1900s control of contaminants from the refining of crude oil has become a significant consideration in the design and operation of the oil refinery. Chapter 2 of this book provides the changes that have taken place in the specification of motive fuels to meet legislative environmental control. These products have been singled out because they impact more prominently on the daily life style and health of the general public, particularly in the more advanced industrial countries. Similar changes and legislative control have been adopted on the levels of effluents leaving the refinery plants in the water and air. These changes have become more restrictive as greater knowledge of their effect on the environment emerges. This chapter then deals with some of the measures adopted in process design and operation of processes to meet these environmental protection measures. These are described and discussed in the following parts of the chapter:

• Part 1. Aqueous wastes

• Part 2. Emission to the atmosphere

• Part 3. Noise abatement

The aqueous and atmospheric contaminants that most refineries emit are shown in Table 14.1. The table also shows the process plant source of these more common contaminants.