Nanomembrane Approach Reuses Waste, Cleans Produced Water

Abstract

_ This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 213946, “Nanomembranes From Polymeric Waste for Produced-Water Treatment,” by Anton Manakhov, Iaroslav Rybkin, and Fahd I. AlGhunaimi, Saudi Aramco, et al. The paper has not been peer reviewed. _ In the oil and gas sector, produced water is the most significant waste stream. Among the different materials used for water filtration, including ceramics, polymers, and carbon nanomaterials, polymeric nanofibers can be considered a unique solution that can be used as a membrane or an adsorbent. In the complete paper, the authors write that polymeric nanofibers can be prepared from polystyrene waste. Introduction The management of polystyrene trash and recycling creates a significant environmental problem. While most of this substance ends up in landfills, only a small portion of polystyrene is recycled or burned. By turning this trash into products with added value, recycling will become more appealing economically and will result in lower CO2 emissions and less chemical waste dumped on the ground. At the same time, the use of modified nanofiltration membranes for generated-water purification has been a subject of study for many researchers. The complete paper includes a review of the literature dedicated to advances in this approach. Dissolved polystyrene waste can be used as a feedstock in the electrospinning process to create nanofibrous membranes. Electrospinning is one of the more basic methods for producing nanofibers with dimensions ranging from micrometers to nanometers. Strong electrostatic forces are used to overcome the surface tension of a polymer solution or melt. These pressures produce the ejection of charged polymer jets, which dry as they approach a grounded electrode, where they are gathered as nanofibers. In this work, the nanofibrous polystyrene membranes were prepared from discarded expanded polystyrene waste. Initially, polystyrene waste was collected and dissolved in an organic solvent; then, the nanofibrous membranes were prepared by the electrospinning of nanofibers from this solution. The morphology, pore sizes, and other parameters were controlled and optimized by tuning the concentration of polystyrene, the nature of the solvent, and the spinning voltage to form uniformly sized nanofibrous membranes.