Organic compounds in Weiyuan shale gas produced water: Identification, detection and rejection by ultrafiltration-reverse osmosis processes

Abstract Quantification of organic pollutants in flowback and produced water is essential to design appropriate treatment strategy and predict the potential environmental toxicity associated with unconventional energy production. Herein, we firstly characterized the important range chemicals of produced water (PW) collected from Weiyuan shale gas play, China. Ultra-high resolution (>10 M) electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry was used to gain insights into molecular compositions of mass range 170–1,000 Da. Oxygen-containing organic compounds (CHO) was the dominant type of compounds in the PW, and classes of O8 and O9 had the highest relative abundance. Highly unsaturated phenolic and aliphatic compounds were identified as the main compounds. Three low molecular weight (LMW,