Specialised treatment for refinery sour water stripper bottoms and desalter effluent, addressing high salinity, ammonia, sulphides, and phenols for safe discharge or reuse.
Treat drilling muds, cuttings wash water and site runoff. Solid-liquid separation and water recycling for drilling operations.
Refinery wastewater treatment including API separators, DAF, advanced biological treatment and polishing for strict discharge.
Oil and gas wastewater treatment for produced water treatment.
ATEX-certified wastewater treatment equipment for explosive atmospheres in oil, gas and petrochemical facilities.
Treating High-Strength Refinery Streams
Sour water and desalter effluent represent the most challenging refinery wastewater streams. Sour water from amine regeneration and sulphur recovery contains high concentrations of ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, and phenols. Desalter effluent brings high salinity, solids, and emulsified oil. Our integrated treatment approach combines steam stripping, oil separation, and specialised biological or chemical polishing to render these streams safe for discharge.
Sour water strippers (SWS) remove H2S and NH3 prior to advanced biological treatment, reducing toxicity and odour emissions.
Specialised DAF and coalescing systems handle high-salinity desalter wastewater with emulsified oil.
Biological or chemical oxidation processes reduce phenol concentrations to <0.5 mg/L meeting strict discharge standards.
Treated desalter effluent can be recycled to crude desalting or cooling tower makeup reducing freshwater demand.
Sour Water & Desalter Sources
Sour water from amine treating units containing H2S, CO2, and heat-stable salts requiring steam stripping.
Treatment of sour water from Claus plants and tail gas treating units with high sulphide and ammonia loads.
High-salinity wastewater from electrostatic desalters containing oil, solids, and dissolved salts.
Sour condensate from hydrotreaters and hydrocrackers with ammonia, sulphides, and dissolved organics.
High-phenol sour water from delayed coking and fluid coking with concentrated organics.
Sour water from atmospheric and vacuum tower overhead systems containing chlorides and sulphides.
Integrated Sour Water & Desalter Treatment
Sour water strippers remove H2S and NH3 under pressure, producing stripped water suitable for advanced biological treatment.
Self-cleaning filters provide final suspended solids removal before discharge or reuse.
Products for Sour Water & Desalter Treatment
High-efficiency oil and solids removal for high-salinity desalter effluent and sour water.
Benefit: Salt-tolerant design
Gravity oil-water separation for free oil removal from desalter wastewater.
Benefit: Low operating requirement
Moving bed biofilm reactors for high-rate COD and phenol removal in saline conditions.
Benefit: 90%+ COD removal
High-rate solids separation for primary and tertiary clarification in minimal space.
Benefit: 70% smaller footprint
Custom-designed stripping columns for H2S and NH3 removal from refinery sour water.
Benefit: >99% sulphide removal
Automatic backwash filtration for final polishing and protection of downstream equipment.
Benefit: Continuous operation
Why Choose Reynolds & Bauhm
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Crude unit overhead; FCC fractionator overhead; hydrotreater stripper overhead; coker fractionator; sulphur recovery (Claus) tail-gas treater. Each has different H₂S / NH₃ ratio.
Typical untreated sour water: H₂S 500–5,000 ppm; NH₃ 500–5,000 ppm; phenols 10–200 ppm; cyanide 1–50 ppm; mercaptans 5–100 ppm.
Segregate phenolic streams (FCC, coker) from non-phenolic (crude, distillate hydrotreaters). Allows separate stripping conditions and protects ammonia recovery quality.
HCN co-produced in coker / FCC sour water. Reacts with Fe equipment to form ferrocyanide complexes that resist standard stripping. Pre-treat with NaOH + polysulphide.
Surge tank upstream of stripper provides 4–8 hours residence to absorb feed variability. Skim oil layer separately collected. Inert blanket prevents H₂S escape.
All sour water piping fully gasketed/welded with vapour space tied to refinery vent or thermal oxidiser. No atmospheric exposure permitted under HSE H₂S regulations.
pH control upstream of sour-water stripper to optimise H₂S / NH₃ release efficiency.
Read MoreAll pH adjustment technologies, reagents and reactor designs.
Read MoreFeedback, feed-forward and cascade control for pH dosing loops.
Read MoreRight pump for acid / caustic / lime dosing duties.
Read MoreStokes’-law sizing, API Publication 421 design methodology, rectangular API / CPI / TPI configurations and refinery-train integration.
Sizing, components, types, materials, codes & compliance — the full engineering reference for gravity oil-water separation.
Read the API Separators PageCompare the three dominant configurations side-by-side — droplet cut-size, footprint, Operating expenditure and best-fit applications.
Compare Separator TypesCFD-verified F-factor for shorter basins, optimised inlet diffusers and reduced civils Capital expenditure.
CFD EngineeringContact our experts to design a system for your refinery's most challenging wastewater streams.
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