Membrane Fouling for Produced Water Treatment: A Review Study From a Process Control Perspective

Abstract

The offshore oil and gas industry is experiencing increasing water cuts as the reservoirs mature. The increase in produced water stresses the currently deployed deoiling technologies, resulting in more oil in the discharged water. Deploying membrane filtration to reduce the hydrocarbon concentration inherits additional complications related to fouling of the membranes: A process where the accumulation of material within and on the membrane surface adds additional flow resistance. This paper reviews and analyses the fouling detection, removal, prevention, dynamical and static modeling, with emphasis on how the membrane process can be manipulated from a process control perspective. The majority of the models rely on static descriptions or are limited to a narrow range of operating conditions which limits the usability of the models. This paper concludes that although the membrane filtration has been successfully applied and matured in many other industrial areas, challenges regarding cost-effective mitigation of fouling in the offshore deoiling applications, still exist. Fouling-based modeling combined with online parameter identification could potentially expand the operating range of the models and facilitate advanced control design to address transient performance and scheduling of fouling removal methods, resulting in cost-effective operation of membrane filtration systems. With the benefits of membrane filtration, it is predicted that membrane technology will be incorporated in produced water treatment, if the zero-discharge policies are enforced globally.

A Review on Current Development of Membranes for Oil Removal from Wastewaters

“…This requires the use of very stable membrane structures so that rigorous cleaning can be applied, which favours inorganic structures [94]. That fouling greatly reduces the effectiveness of membranes for oil removal has been highlighted in recent works [95]. Researchers modelled the fouling mechanisms of mullite MF membranes during different membrane stages, including the standard blocking, complete blocking, intermediate blocking, and cake layer formation (Figure 4).…”

Electrospun Nylon 6,6/ZIF-8 Nanofiber Membrane for Produced Water Filtration

“…Fouling occurs due to deposition of particles at the top of membrane surfaces or inside membrane pores. This will increase the membrane replacement and backwashing costs while at the same time reduce the system productivity [6][7][8].…”

Pretreatment Techniques for Produced Water with Subsequent Forward Osmosis Remediation

“…Current commonly practiced treatment methods of PW are limited due to the lack of financial incentives for oil and gas operator and limited regulations [15]. The majority of the billions of gallons of PW generated annually are disposed of using saltwater disposal (SWD) wells [16,17], which remove the contaminated water from the water cycle but have been linked to induced seismic events [18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…In addition to the complex biogeochemical matrix that forms PW, the properties of the solution are continuously changing. Large variations in composition and quantity occur over the lifetime of a given well and between wells [15]. When PW is used as the FS for FO, fouling has been specifically attributed to polyacrylamide, which is commonly used as a friction reducer to enhance oil and gas recovery [37,39,40].…”

“…When PW is used as the FS for FO, fouling has been specifically attributed to polyacrylamide, which is commonly used as a friction reducer to enhance oil and gas recovery [37,39,40]. Treatment of FS before FO is a well-established practice [15]; however, the authors found limited studies have treated PW prior to using FO as a remediation technique.…”