Honeywell UOP Bioreactor to Help Refinery Meet Wastewater Treatment Regulations

Industrial wastewater treatment technology from Honeywell UOP will help a Wyoming refinery remove contaminants from its wastewater to meet new environmental requirements, the company says.

HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining will use Honeywell UOP’s XCeed bioreactor technology to remove selenium from wastewater at its 52,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The unit will process about 1 million gallons per day of wastewater when it goes online this year.

HollyFrontier selected Honeywell’s technology after a successful field demonstration for selenium removal, says Jim Stump, senior vice president of refining for HollyFrontier.

Honeywell UOP’s XCeed bioreactor technology removes organic and inorganic contaminants to help industrial, manufacturing and groundwater remediation facilities meet contaminant removal specifications for wastewater discharge or reuse, the company says.

It can help a variety of industries — food and beverage companies, chemical and textile manufacturers, refinery and petrochemical facilities — meet wastewater regulations, says Rebecca Liebert, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP’s Catalysts, Adsorbents and Specialties business. The system has more than 50 successful installations.

This advanced biological technology is based on Honeywell UOP’s expertise in reactor design, applied microbiology and process control that enables long biomass retention time, resulting in efficient selenium removal with low sludge production, low energy consumption, low maintenance and minimal operator attention.

Other Honeywell UOP separations technologies have been commercially proven in many water applications, including the removal of radioactive contaminants from water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.