Study the Potential of Biological Growth on Dead-end Hollow Fiber Membrane using Oilfield Effluent

Abstract

Abstract: Oil and gas-producing countries are suffering from water resource depletion without any treatment or with technologies that have the same impact, regardless of how expensive or large a land area required. On the other hand, domestic wastewater also has many treatment technologies, and biological full cell is one of them. Using an end-of-tube hollow fiber membrane in domestic wastewater allows biological microorganisms to grout and treat the water, whereas using oil-filled water has not been studied so far. This study addresses the potential of biological growth on two different types of dead-end hollow fiber membranes by using three samples of oilfield water i.e., Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor OxyMem and MEMCOR® Ultrafiltration. The Membrane Bioreactor Systems are selected for the current studies and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used to show the biological growth on selected types of membrane to treat the oilfield wastewater. As a result, the growth in OxyMem is better which is 54% of COD removal and 55% NT removal for 55 days, whereas MEMCOR shows comparatively less growth in SEM results with 33% of COD removal and 9% NT removal during the same period. Therefore, this confirms that both types of membranes can be used to treat oilfield water in biological cells and noticed a better performance in OxyMem compared to MEMCOR.