| Description |
Water generated along with oil and gas during coal bed methane and oil shale operations is commonly known as produced water, formation water, or oilfield brine. The U.S. Department of Energy has forecasted the current volume of 250 million barrels of produced water per day to go up to 312 million barrels per day by 2015. Generally, produced water is composed of dispersed oil, dissolved organic compounds, production chemicals, heavy metals, naturally occurring radioactive minerals and other inorganic compounds. Every year, large volumes of produced water go through underground injection or discharge into the natural water body. Oil shale and coal bed methane operations require huge quantities of fresh water, which is a challenge, especially in coastal and arid regions. Hence treatment and reuse of produced water provides an alternative and sustainable way for fresh water resource for oil shale and coal bed methane operations. None of the existing treatment methods provide complete treatment of produced water adequate for its reuse. In this research, several unit operations were tested that will eventually lead to the development of an integrated treatment scheme for produced water. These unit operations included chemical and biological methods. Naphthalene and benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene (BTEX) were used as the model organic compounds to represent the complex organics present in the produced water. Chemical unit operations to be employed included electrolytic and advanced oxidation techniques. |
