Membranes reclaim aggressive produced water from California oilfield

Increasingly, membrane technologies are finding a place in the oil and gas industry, in the USA and Australia in particular, for dealing with the difficult wastewaters that arise from the extraction process. This article describes how, in a Californian oilfield, a reverse-osmosis process has operated for two years at high pH for the removal of dissolved salts and organics – including sodium, silica, boron and TOC. The treated water is then reused for environmental augmentation purposes. This article first appeared in the February/March 2011 issue of Desalination & Water Reuse magazine.

Increasingly, membrane technologies are finding a place in the oil and gas industry, in the USA and Australia in particular, for dealing with the difficult wastewaters that arise from the extraction process.

This article describes how, in a Californian oilfield, a reverse-osmosis process has operated for two years at high pH for the removal of dissolved salts and organics – including sodium, silica, boron and TOC. The treated water is then reused for environmental augmentation purposes.

This article first appeared in the February/March 2011 issue of Desalination & Water Reuse magazine.