The rapid development of unconventional oil and gas generates a large amount of contaminated produced water. The treatment and reuse of such water generally requires multiple treatment processes to remove different constituents from the waste, such as salinity and organic matter. This study characterized the performance of a new microbial capacitive desalination (MCD) technology for simultaneous removal of organic pollutants and salinity from shale gas produced water, as well as its energy production during the process. The lab scale MCD reactor was able to remove TDS at the rate of 2,760 mg/L/hr and COD at a combined rate of 170 mg/L/hr, which was 18 times and 5 times faster than a traditional microbial desalination cell, respectively. The reactor removed greater than 65% of the TDS and 85% of the COD in 4 hours of operation in the desalination chamber, and more than 98% of the salts and 75% of the organics were recovered during regeneration process. The pilot consists of a MCD, a peristaltic pump, an energy harvesting system, 7 sensors, data collection and an automation control system. The pilot system is operated at flow rate of 228 gallons/day, and is capable of removing 473 mg COD/L/Day from the anode chamber and 724 mg COD/L/day from the desalination chamber. From the desalination chamber 66% of the TDS was removed at a 50% water recovery rate. The highest power density achieved from a single MCD was 89 W/m<sup>3</sup> with a coulombic efficiency of 11.4%. [<i>Oral presentation</i>]

Microbial capacitive desalination for organic and salt removal and energy production from unconventional natural gas produced water

249th National Meeting (2015)

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