Electrolytic treatment of production water in the oil industry: Environmental sustainability and complexity

Abstract

With the growing demand for oil and its derivatives, it is generated an increasing volume of produced water, which before being discarded must undergo treatment in order to meet the requirements of environmental agencies. The electrolytic treatment or electroflocculation has shown a promising alternative to compliance with environmental legislation, due to its versatility, competitiveness and efficient removal of oil and grease, COD, color and turbidity. However, it should be considered political, economic, social, environmental and technical issues in the development of producing water treatment technologies to contemplate the paradigm of environmental sustainability. This paradigm requires an approach from the perspective of complexity that involves various areas of knowledge, in dialogue, as opposed to classical thought, which is linear and cartesian. The principles of complex thinking on the concept of environmental sustainability exemplified by electrolytic treatment of produced water from oil industry indicate that one should be aware of the repercussions of the parts and the whole and the whole in the parts in order to reduce the probability of being generated major environmental problems.