Modified Graphene and Smart nanomaterials for Treatment of Produced Water

The trend worldwide, especially in oil-produced countries, is to treat produced water (PW) to prevent the environment and to reuse the water. PW is the wastewater generated along with oil and gas during extraction from underground reservoirs. PW is a term used in the oil industries to define the PW as a byproduct during oil and natural gas extraction. PW is a type of brackish water and saline water from underground formations, which are brought to the surface. In addition, most oil- and gas-bearing rocks contain water. Thus, when the oil and gas are extracted from such rocks, the water comes out along with the injected water. PW can be from natural gases, oilfield, and coal bed methane. PW results from a process in the gas and oil industries; (i) during extraction, which produces a mixture of oil and water that is generally seawater surrounding the oil wells, and (ii) the water injected in the oilfields to bring the deep oil to the surface eventually be a part of PW. The PW types from oil or natural gas productions do not have a specific and constant volume. However, its specifications and volumes depend on the location and the technology used for extraction. For example, as the age of the wells increase, the decline of oil and gas production results. Consequently, the amounts of PW generation increases. Therefore, there is a demand for the reuse of PW. The composition of the PW is complex of dissolved and particulates inorganic and organic chemicals. It varies depending generally on many factors including field location of reservoir, age, depth of the well formation, types of hydrocarbon, extraction method, type of the produced hydrocarbon, etc. PW is characterized by its components parameters such as the level of (i) Salinity (salt contents), (ii) electrical conductivity (total dissolved solids, TDS), (iii) oil contents, (iv) hydrocarbons components level, (v) BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes), (vi) phenols, organic acids, (vii) hardness and scaling(calcium, magnesium, sulfates, barium); (viii) formation components.