Application of membrane distillation for the treatment of oil field produced water

Abstract Direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) was investigated for the treatment of oil-field produced water using a hydrophobic polypropylene (PP) membrane with 0.2 μm pore size. The DCMD performance was studied under different feed temperatures ranged from 40 °C to 80 °C while the cooling temperature was maintained at 23 °C. Increasing the feed water temperature resulted in a higher permeate water flux. Stable and reliable DCMD membrane performance was observed for all used membranes. The obtained results indicated the great potential of DCMD to treat hypersaline oil-field produced water with an overall rejection of salts higher than 99.9% and that of total organic carbon (TOC) greater than 93.3%. This was due to the presence of volatile organic compounds in oil-field water. Pre-treatment of produced water using 0.45 μm filter did not show much effect on the DCMD performance. A slight gradual reduction of the permeate flux was observed due to fouling phenomenon. A simple washing the membrane with de-ionized water was found to be an effective method for cleaning the membrane and restoring the permeate flux indicating the absence of irreversible fouling.