Many conventional technologies are ineffective for oil and gas wastewater treatment due to high concentrations of dissolved solids, oils, and chemical additives. Common management practices include deep-well injection and on-site reuse after gravity separation and precipitation; unfavorably, injection permanently removes water from local resources, and reuse after precipitation may cause scaling and fracturing fluid incompatibility. Recently, the use of forward osmosis (FO) membranes has shown the ability to address both issues. Using osmotic pressure to diffuse pure water from wastewater to a high salinity draw solution, FO can recover up to 80% of oil and gas wastewater and reliably reject dissolved constituents. This study evaluates the short and long term effects of fouling on FO membrane performance when used for treatment of oil and gas wastewater. Two flat-sheet FO membranes are used in two different wastewaters from the Piceance and Denver-Julesburg basins. Analyses monitor membrane performance (e.g., water flux and reverse salt flux), chemical surface changes (e.g., fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, contact angle, and electron dispersive spectroscopy), physical damage (e.g., environmental electron scanning microscope), and microbial activity (e.g., agar-plate enzyme screening). This work will offer insight into fouling composition and mechanisms, important for future designs and successes of FO in oil and gas wastewater treatment.

Evaluation of forward osmosis membranes in long-term oil and gas wastewater treatment stud

249th National Meeting (2015)

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