Oilfield produced water treatment to clean water using integrated activated carbon-bentonite adsorbent and double stages membrane process

Membrane-based separation is a technology that recently developed by researchers, especially in wastewater treatment. Implementation of membrane technology in oil wastewater treatment is limited due to its low productivity as a result of fouling on the membrane surface. The introduction of nanomaterials has been developed to the produced nano-hybrid membrane with better performance. In this paper, nano-hybrid polyethersulfone (PES) membranes contained nano SiO2 and ZnO are fabricated and evaluated for produced water treatment in a double stages configuration. The nano-hybrid PES membranes are fabricated using dry-wet phase inversion to form flat sheet membranes. The membrane filtration cell is set in double stages configuration with nano-hybrid PES membrane in the first stage and neat PES membrane in the second stage. In this study, separation performance of nano-hybrid PES-nano SiO2 and PES-nano ZnO is compared and discussed. Fouling behaviour of the membranes is also revealed. Experimental results show that the nano-hybrid PES-nano SiO2 membrane has 25% higher permeate flux than the nano-hybrid PES-nano ZnO. Comparing overall improvements of double stages performance with single stage confirmed that the final flux enhanced by 200%, mineral rejection efficiency improved by 16–18%, and the lower foulant deposition on the membrane. The performance enhancement of nano-hybrid membrane is restricted by the loading concentration where the agglomeration doesn’t occur. It is expected that this study can provide guidance for improving new strategies to facilitate PES membrane-based separation as an effective and efficient technology for produced water treatment.

Performance evaluation of double stage process using nano hybrid PES/SiO2-PES membrane and PES/ZnO-PES membranes for oily waste water treatment to clean water

The current problems in membrane separation are mostly related the low permeability and high foulant deposition of the membranes. Polyethersulfone-nano silica membrane was developed to produce membranes with high permeation. However, it reduced the selectivity of the membrane due to microvoid formation between the inorganic filler and polymer. UV irradiation and thermal annealing treatments were synergistically applied to Polyethersulfone-nano silica membrane to overcome the mentioned problem. The nano-sized silica was incorporated in the polyethersulfone as an inorganic filler using solution-casting dry/wet phase inversion technique. After exposing the membrane film under the UV ray, the thermal annealing was applied at varying temperatures and annealing time. Produced water treatment experiments showed that the combination of UV irradiation and thermal annealing on the membrane improved water permeability and selectivity due to the synergistic effect of the both treatments. The longer thermal annealing treatment slightly reduced the permeability, but increased the selectivity. Separation performance of the UV irradiated and thermal annealed PES-nano silica membrane was better than the existing membranes. The UV irradiation and thermal annealing process are beneficial for improving the permeability and selectivity of the PES-nano silica membrane.

Synergistic effect of UV irradiation and thermal annealing to develop high performance polyethersulfone-nano silica membrane for produced water treatment

Produced water has become a global environmental issue due to its huge volume and toxicity that may pose detrimental effects on receiving environment. Several approaches have been proposed to provide a strategy for produced water handling such as reinjection, reuse, or discharge. With various advantages, membrane technology has been increasingly used in produced water treatment replacing the conventional technologies. However, fouling is a major drawback of membrane processes in this application which needs to be controlled. This paper gives an overview and comparison of different produced water management. Special attention is given to produced water treatment for reuse purpose. Furthermore, the use of membrane processes in produced water reuse including performance, challenges, and future outlook are discussed.

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Oilfield Produced Water Reuse and Reinjection with Membrane

This research is implemented primarily to obtain the enhanced performance in terms of permeability, solute rejection and anti-fouling behavior of PES membrane towards produced water treatment by incorporating nano-SiO2 and nano-ZnO as nano inorganic filler. The fabricated membrane was modified through UV irradiation and immersion in Acetone-Ethanol mixture. The effect of several modification treatments is investigated in this study. Nano hybrid PES-SiO2 and PES-ZnO membrane were prepared using Loeb-Sourirajan methods (NIPS phase inversion). The casted membrane was exposed under UV lights for 2 min and followed by immersion in Acetone-Ethanol mixture for 24 h. The result of SEM and FTIR analysis confirmed that the nano particles incorporation change the membrane surface structure, while UV treatment and Ac-Et immersion significantly enhanced the hydrophilicity of membrane material. Nano hybrid membrane displayed high efficiency of oil removal up to >99%, the immersion in the Ac-Et increased the water permeability about 20% and caused slightly decrease in solute rejection. The modified nano hybrid membrane performed an anti-fouling behavior in produced water filtration process.

Enhanced anti-fouling behavior and performances of nano hybrid pes-sio2 and pes-zno membranes for produced water treatment

This study is performed primarily to investigate the effect of surface modification of cellulose acetate using thermal annealing on the enhancement of membrane performance for produced water treatment. In this study, Cellulose Acetate membranes were casted using dry/wet phase inversion technique. The effect of additive and post-treatment using thermal annealing on the membrane surface were examined for produced water treatment. Therma annealing was subjected to membrane surface at 60 and 70 °C for 5, 10 and 15 second, respectively. Membrane characterizations were done using membrane flux and rejection with produced water as a feed, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infra Red (FTIR) analysis. Experimental results showed that asymmetric cellulose acetate membrane can be made by dry/wet phase inversion technique. The results from the Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) analysis was also confirmed that polyethylene glycol as additivie in dope solution and thermal annealing was affected the morphology and membrane performance for produced water treatment, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy micrographs showed that the selective layer and the substructure of membrane became denser and more compact after the thermal annealing processes. Therefore, membrane rejection was significantly increased while the flux was slighty decreased, respectively. The best membrane performance is obtained on the composition of 18 wt % cellulose acetate, poly ethylene glycol 5 wt% with thermal annealing at 70° C for 15 second.

H. Sukmawati

Papers

Surface modification of cellulose acetate membrane using thermal annealing to enhance produced water treatment