With the increasing demand of the environmental protection, especially the “Emission Standard of Pollutants for Petroleum Chemistry Industry” which has been increased COD emission limit from 100 mg·L-1 to 60 mg·L-1 for petrochemical wastewater promulgated in 2015, thence the treatment of petrochemical wastewater faces enormous challenges in China. At present, the treatment process of petrochemical wastewater is mainly based on biological treatment, and the effluent is poor in biodegradability and difficult to meet the new standard. Therefore, it is urgent to develop the advanced treatment process to meet emission limit for petrochemical secondary effluent. In this paper, the characteristics of secondary petrochemical wastewater is explained. Meanwhile, the mature advanced treatments, including adsorption on activated carbon, the advanced oxidation processes, membrane filtration, and electrocatalytic oxidation, are introduced. Furthermore, the biological aerated filter (BAF) process and its applications are stated. Based on the previous work, it is suggested that the combination of ozonation and BAF with advantages of high efficiency and low cost is a promising technique for advanced treatment of petrochemical wastewater.