Oil field produced water recovery and boosting the quality for using in membrane less fuel cell

Abstract

With recent surge of strict regulations to treat the produced water, many companies start preparing efficient treatment methods to create the end permeate that can be disposed. This produced water is produced in massive amount during the crude oil and gas production either onshore or offshore. Furthermore, this wastewater has distinctive characteristics as it has many different contaminants packed inside which are mostly due to variation of organic and inorganic compounds. However, this water with proper treatment can preserve microbes which are very prominent in it. The key is to maintain the feed for the microbes and remove unnecessary contaminants that hinder microbes activities which creates conducive environment. Thus, the methods for this study was chosen to remove the dissolved oil droplets using coagulation/flocculation, microfiltration membrane and forward osmosis. These methods will be able to remove grease and oil while maintaining the chemical oxygen demand and other organic compounds that act as the feed for the microbes that are already in the produced water. At the end of the experiment, the conductive environment for the microbes achieved. This enables the end permeate to be further treated with microbial fuel cell that not only treat the organic compounds in the water, it can also produce electricity that can be commercialized.