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BACKGROUND: Produced water is generated in huge volumes from oil and gas production facilities. Different alternatives including physical, chemical, and biological methods can be applied for the treatment of produced waters. In this study, different pre-treatment alternatives used before a final nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membrane system were evaluated. A membrane bioreactor and pressurized microfiltration and ultrafiltration systems were used in the pre-treatment stage.RESULTS: According to the results, the highest flux was obtained by the combination of ultrafiltration/microfiltration and nanofiltration; whereas, the maximum removal efficiencies for conductivity and chemical oxygen demand were obtained by the combination of membrane bioreactor and reverse osmosis systems. CONCLUSION:The results of this study show that the emphasis should be placed on applying the right combination of membrane treatment processes instead of focusing only on pre-or final treatment units.

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Produced water originated from oil and gas production wells was treated by a pilot-scale system including pre-treatment (chemical precipitation), pre-filtration, and post-filtration units. Pre-filtration unit consisted of sand filter, granulated activated carbon (GAC) filter, and ultrafiltration (UF) membrane. Post-filtration unit included reverse osmosis (RO) membrane unit. In this study, two different RO membranes including sea water (SW) and brackish water (BW) membranes were comparatively evaluated in terms of treatment and filtration performance. Besides, a cost analysis was conducted for a real scale RO membrane unit by using the data obtained from the pilot plant study. Average fluxes of 12.7 and 9.4 L/m h were obtained by SW and BW membrane units, respectively. Higher COD and conductivity removal efficiencies were obtained by SW membrane in comparison to BW membrane. Total cost of 0.88 €/m was estimated for a RO plant treating produced water with a flowrate capacity of 300 m/d.