BP
Treating waste water
The challenge
The Purified Terephthalic Acid Business Unit, known as the PTA Unit, was given the challenge of minimising the waste biomass sludge produced during treatment of the wastewater.
Untreated water is high in organic compounds which must be broken down. The Cooper River Plant tackled this by using two types of microbiological processes. Although this was effective in cleaning the water, it also produced a large amount of biomass sludge.
A petrochemical plant is made up of complex systems, and it was important that a new technology designed to reduce the biomass sludge should not cause a problem in another part of the petrochemical process.
At the Cooper River Plant, the cost of treating and disposing the waste biomass sludge was around three quarters of a million dollars per year The biomass was disposed of either by incineration or it was transported to landfill sites.