Treatment of refinery wastewater: Current status and prospects

The continuous increase in petroleum refining wastewater production poses a significant challenge to protecting the water environment. The comprehensive review of petroleum refining wastewater treatment processes, particularly on the cutting-edge treatment technologies, treatment efficiency, and pollutant degradation mechanisms, must be provided. This article offers such a review for filling up the literature gap. The current technologies, including the traditional pre-treatments, primary, secondary, and tertiary treatments, the combined treatments, and the wetland treatment processes, were discussed in detail. The challenges encountered in current practice, with the future research needs to overcome the challenges, were then outlined. The emerging research trend including the use of artificial intelligence technology for enhancing the petroleum refining wastewater treatment performance was also highlighted.