Innovative materials for heavy metals and hydrocarbons removal from wastewater of oil industry

Recovery of wastewater is one of the most important challenges for our future due to the endemic scarcity of this resource in many parts of the world. Wastewaters derived from petrochemical activities represent a large share of water linked to human activities. This is due to the centrality of oil for the global economy and the great water consumption for all the linked activities, that goes from extraction to refinery. The adsorption technologies providing zeolite materials, both microporous and mesoporous, present a good choice for water remediation due to their simplicity, effectiveness, long term stability and adaptability. The development of new materials for adsorption technology is the main goal of this thesis. In particular, some microporous materials for heavy metals uptake and several mesoporous materials for hydrocarbons confinement have been characterized by structural and process point of view. Kinetic and thermodynamic (adsorption isotherms) behaviour of all material with different organic and inorganic pollutants is deeply investigated. Mathematical models to describe adsorption kinetics and isotherms have also been developed in order to obtain important parameter useful for the transaction from bench-scale to the next pilot scale. Structural characterization has been carried out to understand which changes occurred in material structure after adsorption of contaminants, the host-guest interactions and thermal stability of materials. This double characterization work was planned to screen a set of known materials and compare their performances to those of a new mesoporous amorphous material: the mesoporous silica-alumina or MSA. Indeed, the ultimate aim is to use MSA as multitalented material for simultaneous removal of heavy metals and hydrocarbons from wastewater derived from oil extraction, oil refining or oil contamination.