Treatment of high-salt oil produced water based on constructed wetland technology—A case study of a costal oilfield

Abstract

Aiming at the treatment of large volume of oil produced wastewater, the combined technology based on constructed wetland was applied for produced water treatment in a costal oil field. During the stable operation period, the treatment system maintained removal efficiency of 50.2% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), 100% for oil and 85.1% for ammonium nitrogen (NH3-N) under the gradient increase of salinity along the process. Meanwhile, this system has a good ability to adapt the influent fluctuation. When the oil in the influent fluctuated greatly between 11 mg/L to 147 mg/L, the effluent water quality remained stable. The treated water met the national discharge standard for water pollutants from the oilfield industry and can be used for the saline alkali beach wetland as supplement water.