2021 Annual Meeting
(339g) Evaluation of Integrated Electrocoagulation-Microfiltration and Direct Contact Membrane Distillation Processes for Produced Water Treatment
Authors
A continuous electrocoagulation cell has been designed to flocculate the organic matter present in the raw produced water. A range of microfiltration membranes (polymeric, metal) were used to remove the flocs formed during the electrocoagulation. The permeate from the microfiltration membrane was treated further by direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). Different types of membranes with different surface properties were investigated for DCMD. In this work, we aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of an integrated EC-MF-DCMD system for water recovery from high salinity produced waters. During EC, a high removal efficiency of total organic carbon (48.4%) was obtained by using 6 aluminium plates with bipolar configuration at 9.5 A for 20 min. Keeping the feed tank temperature at 40 oC, while the temperature inside the model is maintained at 60 oC can effectively suppress crystallization on the membrane surface, which can significantly decrease scaling. 50% water recovery was obtained using commercial membranes over two DCMD cycles. However, suppressing fouling by organic compounds, especially surfactants due to formation of micelles and bilayers, is essential to maximize the lifetime of the DCMD membrane.