Research Project Full Title: Hollow fiber membrane air stripping for the removal of carbonate species in produced water from hydraulic fracturing
2-4 Word Description: hydraulic fracturing, water purification
Principal Investigator(s):
- Dora Frances Sullivan-González, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, master’s candidate
- Dr. Lynn Katz
- Dr. Desmond F. Lawler
- Dr. Benny Freeman
Researchers:
Sponsor(s):
Full Abstract:
Approximately 5.66 million m3 of wastewater per year is produced by hydraulic fracking; the “flowback” water constitutes about 10-30% of the water used in the fracking process. The ideal situation would be to treat and reuse the flowback water to reduce disposal costs and the demand for fresh water, but such treatment is difficult due to high saline content and presence of oils and other organics. In their pilot study, Miller et al. addressed the use of ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes modified with a polydopamine coating to treat produced water from the Barnett shale gas basin in Texas. I propose the addition of a hollow fiber (HF) air stripping membrane unit for CO2 removal as an intermediate step in this treatment train to improve the desalination performance of reserve osmosis. I will initially test the HF membrane using a variety of synthetic waters that contain varying concentrations of total dissolved solids under a range of parameters including transmembrane pressure and fluxes to achieve outlet concentrations.