Development of antifouling polyethersulfone (PES)-nano ZnO membrane for produced water treatment

Abstract

Produced water is the side product of the oil and gas processing. This water is different from any common water because it contains the dangerous chemical substances and matters in the oil and gas. The usage of produced water and unprocessed waste of produced water contains a lot of dangerous substances that can endanger the environmental stability. The right processing is all that it needs to make produced water that is drinkable or usable. The membrane technology is one of the alternative waste water treatment technologies. But, as in the usage, it still lacks in the field of fouling and cannot fulfilled the specification of usable water. Thus, this becomes the reason that bases this research. In this paper, there will be made a polyethersulfone membrane with an inversion phase method and an addition of Nano-antifouling compound, ZnO. The experimental results show that the TDS value of produced water decreased from 6600 into 1500 mg/L. Nano ZnO addition of 1.5 wt-% increase the permeate flux from 28 to 43 L/m2.hr. The UV irradiation on the membrane increase the initial flux from 28 to 48 L/m2.hr and also increase the TDS rejection from 16 to 25%. This shows that by using Polyethersulfone (PES)-ZnO membrane, we can increase the separation performance. Hence, this method is suitable for processing the produced water into usable water.