Purification of Produced Water from a Sour Oilfield in South Kuwait. 1. Oil-Water Separation and Industrial Salt Production

Produced water from an oil extraction site in South Kuwait was sampled after primary oil – water separation had been carried out. The produced water was filtered through a mixture of activated charcoal and esterified cellulosic material gained from spent coffee grounds as a tertiary adsorption treatment. The earth-alkaline metal ions and heavy metals were separated from the de-oiled produced water by addition of either sodium or potassium hydroxide in the presence of carbon dioxide or by direct addition of solid sodium carbonate. The resulting filtrate gave salt of industrial purity upon selective crystallization on evaporation.

Purification of Produced Water from a Sour Oilfield in South Kuwait. 2. Oil-Water Separation and Crystallization of Calcium Carbonate

Oil-water separation for produced water (PW) originating from an oil extraction site in South Kuwait was carried out using bleached, esterified cellulosic material from used coffee grounds. Thereafter, earth-alkaline metal ions, specifically calcium ions, of the de-oiled PW were removed by precipitation with sodium carbonate to give access to pure sodium chloride as industrial salt from the remaining PW. While the purity of the precipitated calcium carbonate (CaCO3) depends on the precipitation conditions, CaCO3 of up to 95.48% purity can be obtained, which makes it a salable product. The precipitation of CaCO3 decreases the amount of calcium ions in PW from 11,300 ppm to 84 ppm.

Influence of Na^+,K^+,Mg^(2+),Ca^(2+),and Fe^(3+) on filterability and settleability of drilling sludge

Solid–liquid separation is a vital step in drilling sludge disposal, and the filterability and settleability of drilling sludge are the main evaluating indicators for the separation process. The influence of Na^+,K^+,Mg^(2+),Ca^(2+),and Fe^(3+) on drilling sludge filterability and settleability was investigated in our research. The water content,filtration rate, supernatant volume and supernatant turbidity were measured to evaluate the filterability and settleability of drilling sludge. Meanwhile, the zeta potential, specific surface area of sludge flocs, particle size distribution and Fourier-transformed infrared spectra were employed to clarify the influencing mechanism.The experimental results showed that the filterability and settleability of drilling sludge were related to concentration and types of cations. Mg^(2+),Ca^(2+),and Fe^(3+) performed better than Na^+, K^+, and the cations with smaller hydrated radius got superior solid–liquid separation behavior at same valence. Finally, the spectra indicated that no chemical adsorption occurred between inorganic cations and drilling sludge flocs. The variation of surface charge and flocs growth after adding different inorganic cations were the reasons for the changes of the filterability and settleability.

Membrane fouling controlled by coagulation/adsorption during direct sewage membrane filtration(DSMF) for organic matter concentration

Unlike the role of the membrane in a membrane bioreactor, which is designed to replace a sediment tank, direct sewage membrane filtration（DSMF）, with the goal of concentrating organic matters, is proposed as a pretreatment process in a novel sewage treatment concept. The concept of membrane-based pretreatment is proposed to divide raw sewage into a concentrated part retaining most organics and a filtered part with less pollutant remaining, so that energy recovery and water reuse, respectively, could be realized by post-treatment. A pilot-scale experiment was carried out to verify the feasibility of coagulant/adsorbent addition for membrane fouling control, which has been the main issue during this DSMF process. The results showed that continuous coagulant addition successfully slowed down the increase in filtration resistance, with the resistance maintained below 1.0 × 1013m^（-1） in the first 70 hr before a jump occurred. Furthermore,the adsorbent addition contributed to retarding the occurrence of the filtration resistance jump, achieving simultaneous fouling control and chemical oxygen demand（COD）concentration improvement. The final concentrated COD amounted to 7500 mg/L after 6 days of operation.