Electrodialysis-based desalination and reuse of sea and brackish polymer-flooding produced water (original) (raw)

Desalination of Polymer-Flooding Produced Water at Increased Water Recovery and Minimized Energy

When desalinating an industrial stream like polymer-flooding produced water via electrodialysis (ED), high water recoveries, low energy consumption, and reduced membrane area are all desirable. However, little effort has been done until now to experimentally achieve these goals. Encouraged by recent and promising results obtained using aliphatic membranes and pulsed electric field, this study experimentally evaluated different strategies and operational conditions to increase the water recovery while keeping a low energy consumption. The results obtained were analyzed to understand the trade-offs in operative time, water recovery, and energy consumption. Finally, the experimental data was employed to perform an economic analysis, which indicated that although further optimization should be possible, current conditions already make ED desalination of polymer-flooding produced water a sound case from an economical point of view.

Energy consumption of an electrodialyzer desalinating aqueous polymer solutions

2021

When performing electrodialysis (ED) to desalinate a stream, both the energy for desalination and the energy for pumping contribute to the total energy consumption, although under typical working conditions (e.g., brackish water desalination) the latter is usually negligible. However, the energy penalty might increase when desalinating viscous mixtures (i.e., viscosity of 2–20 cP). In this work, we experimentally investigate the desalination performance of an ED-unit operating with highly viscous water-polymer mixtures. The contribution of desalination and pumping energy to the total energy consumption was measured while varying diverse parameters, i.e., salinity and viscosity of the feed, and geometry and thickness of the spacer. It was found that the type of spacer did not significantly influence the energy required for desalination. The pumping energy was higher than predicted, though in most cases minimal compared to the energy for desalination. Only when using thin spacers (300...

Improving the performance of polymer-flooding produced water electrodialysis through the application of pulsed electric field

Desalination

Concentration polarization and fouling hamper the desalination of polymer-flooding produced water (PFPW) via electrodialysis (ED). This water is an abundant by-product from the oil and gas industry. A common technique to mitigate both problems is the application of pulsed electric field (PEF), which consists in supplying a constant current during a short time (pulse) followed by a time without current (pause). Accordingly, this work evaluated the application of PEF during the ED of PFPW to improve the process performance and to reduce fouling incidences. The experimental work consisted in performing ED batch runs in a laboratory-scale stack containing commercial ion exchange membranes. Synthetic PFPW was desalinated under different operating regimes until a fixed number of charges were passed. After each experiment, a membrane pair was recovered from the stack and analyzed through diverse techniques. The application of PEF improved the ED performance in terms of demineralization percentage and energy consumption, the latter having reductions of 36% compared to the continuous mode. In general, the shorter the pulses, the higher the demineralization rate and the lower the energy consumption. Regarding the application of different pause lengths, longer pauses yielded lower energy consumptions, but also lower demineralization. Amorphous precipitates composed of polymer and calcium fouled most on the anion and cation exchange membranes, independently of the applied current regime, but in a

Potential of electrodialytic techniques in brackish desalination and recovery of industrial process water for reuse

Desalination, 2017

Large demands for water in industry and consumer markets have led to the development of seawater desalination plants worldwide. Electrodialysis allows the removal of ions at a much lower specific energy consumption than pressure-driven systems and holds the potential to move the desalination industry to greater water yields, lowering the degree of water wasted and energy required for separations. This study investigates the use of traditional electrodialysis as well as electrodeionization for the removal of contaminant ions from brackish water as well as samples from industrial sources. Results indicated that conventional electrodeionization can successfully remove ion contaminants from brackish water at specific energy consumptions of approximately 0.9-1.5 kWh/m 3 water recovered with high water productivity at 40-90 L/m 2 h. Ion-exchange resin wafer electrodeionization showed greater promise with specific energy consumption levels between 0.6-1.1 kWh/m 3 water recovered and productivity levels between 10-40 L/m 2 h. From these results, electrodialysis and electrodeionization have demonstrated viability as alternatives to pressure-driven membrane systems for brackish water desalination.

Sea water desalination using electrodialysis

Desalination, 2008

Most widely applied and commercially proven desalination technologies fall into two categories of thermal (evaporative) and membrane based methods. Membrane methods are less energy intensive than thermal methods and since energy consumption directly affects the cost-effectiveness and feasibility of using desalination technologies membrane methods such as reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis (ED), are attracted great attention lately. In this paper water desalination using a laboratory ED setup was described and evaluated. Taguchi method was initially used to plan a minimum number of experiments. A L 9 orthogonal array (four factors in three levels) was employed to evaluate effects of temperature (at 25, 40, and 55°C), voltage (at 5, 7, and 9 V), flow rate (at 0.07, 0.13, and 0.25 mL/s) and feed concentration (at 10,000, 20,000, and 40,000 ppm) on separation percentage of salt ions. Maximum percentage of desalination was obtained at the lowest feed concentration and flow rate levels (10,000 ppm and 0.07 mL/s, respectively) and the highest voltage and temperature levels (9 V and 55°C, respectively). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to calculate sum of square, variance, ratio of factor variance to error variance and contribution percentage of each factor on response. The results showed that all factors have significant effect on the response. It was found that, feed concentration is the most influential factor on ED performance (its contribution percentage was calculated to be 82.4%). It was finally found that, contrary to the case of waste water treatment (concentrations of lower than 1000 ppm) which flow rate is the influential factor, in desalination of sea water (concentrations of upper than 10,000 ppm) feed concentration is the key parameter.

Electrodialytic desalination of brackish water: effect of process parameters and water characteristics

Ionics, 2010

The aim of this work is to study the desalination of brackish water by electrodialysis (ED). A two levelthree factor (2 3) full factorial design methodology was used to investigate the influence of different physicochemical parameters on the demineralization rate (DR) and the specific power consumption (SPC). Statistical design determines factors which have the important effects on ED performance and studies all interactions between the considered parameters. Three significant factors were used including applied potential, salt concentration and flow rate. The experimental results and statistical analysis show that applied potential and salt concentration are the main effect for DR as well as for SPC. The effect of interaction between applied potential and salt concentration was observed for SPC. A maximum value of 82.24% was obtained for DR under optimum conditions and the best value of SPC obtained was 5.64 Wh L-1. Empirical regression models were also obtained and used to predict the DR and the SPC profiles with satisfactory results. The process was applied for the treatment of real brackish water using the optimal parameters.

Evaluation of synthetic salt water desalination by using a functionalized polysulfone based bipolar membrane electrodialysis cell

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights • Current efficiency and other parameters show good result for the synthesized membrane. • WDE result infers that synthesized BPM has a good capacity for water splitting. • A PSDVB based commercial membrane shows more leakage of ions than the synthesized membrane. • A desalination process for synthetic salt solution was performed using the BPMED technique. a b s t r a c t The work reported herein describes the study of desalination of synthetic salt water at laboratory scale in five different feed concentrations using a lab-made functionalized high molecular weight polysulfone (PSu) polymer based monopolar (cation exchange and anion exchange) and bipolar ion exchange membranes (with PVA as the intermediate layer) using bipolar membrane electrodialysis cell. Various parameters such as conductivity, solution pH, feed concentration, current efficiency, energy consumption, transport number, fluxes and water dissociation efficiency were determined. During the 8 h treatment under optimal conditions (i.e. time, current, higher acid and base concentrations), for the various initial feed concentrations (from 10 g/L to 50 g/L), the current efficiencies obtained ranged from 27% to 75%. And for the highest feed concentration, the highest current efficiency (≈ max. of about 75% for PSu and 63% for polystyrene divinylbenzene (PSDVB)) with lowest energy consumption (≈ max. of about 1.2 Wh/mol for PSu and 2.6 Wh/mol for PSDVB) in addition to acid-base production (≈ max. of about 0.018 N acid: 0.016 N base for PSu and 0.012 N acid: 0.013 N base for PSDVB) was observed. The results of the study demonstrated the promising potential of functionalized polysulfone based ion exchange membranes for greater water dissociation efficiency in desalination of water.

Treatment of sea water using electrodialysis: Current efficiency evaluation

Desalination, 2009

In this paper, desalination of seawater using a laboratory scale electrodialysis (ED) cell was investigated. At steady state operation of ED, the outlet concentration of dilute stream was measured at different voltages (2−6 V), flow rates (0.1−5.0 mL/s) and feed concentrations (5000−30,000 ppm). The electrical resistance of sea water solution in the dilute compartment was initially calculated using basic electrochemistry rules and average concentration of feed and dilute streams. Then, current intensity in each run was evaluated using Ohm's law. Finally, current efficiency (CE) which is an important parameter in determining the optimum range of applicability of an ED cell was calculated. It was found out that, at flow rates larger than 1.5 mL/s, higher feed concentrations lead to larger values of CE. However, exactly opposite behavior was observed at lower flow rates. Increasing the feed flow rate increases CE to a maximum value then decreases it down to zero for all cell voltages and feed concentrations. In the case of higher feed concentrations, maximum values of CE are obtained at higher flow rates. As expected, in almost all experiments, CE increases by intensifying cell voltage. CE values of up to 48 indicate effective ion transfer across the ion exchange membranes in spite of low separation performance of the ED cell.