Design And Fabrication Of New Dissolved H2s Resistant Membranes For Produced Water Treatment

The produced water treatment lies at the heart of the oil and gas industry in the World and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Given the scanty supply of potable water and daily high co...onsumption of water in drilling operation of oil and gas industry, the recovery of precious water from waste produced water is of utmost need and desire. Various technologies have been explored for the treatment of the produced water. Membrane-based separations have also played significant part in treating produced water. However, there are several challenges that need the attention of the research community to enhance the output of the membranes. One of the major issues of prime importance is the presence of dissolved H2S in the produced water which could substantially harm the integrity of the installed membranes such as polyamide membranes. Although, some efforts have been put forward by the research community to remove the H2S from the produced water feed, but these approaches also face several challenges. No or very little attention has been paid to the fabrication of new types of the membranes for treating the feed with dissolved H2S. The current project is aimed at the development of the membranes with new type of active layers and supports such as polyamine/copolymer active layers. The polyamine/copolymer in contrast to polyamide lacks the carbonyl function of the polyamide. Apparently, the absence of the nucleophile susceptible carbonyl moiety can lead to an increased resistance of the polyamine/copolymer membranes to the dissolved H2S. The newly fabricated membranes will be appropriately tuned for enhancing their H2S resistance. The membranes will be thoroughly characterized and applied for the treatment of the synthetically prepared pre-treated H2S dissolved contained produced water. After success with the synthetically produced water, the membranes will be tested for their ability to treat the pre-treated H2S dissolved contained produced water. The fabricated membranes can be filed as patents in addition to the publications in peer-reviewed ISI journals. The current study will be focused on development of H2S resistant membranes which will be tested for their stability and performance against low concentration of BTX in a pre-treated produced water stream.