Treatment of shale gas drilling flowback fluids (SGDFs) by forward osmosis: membrane fouling and mitigation

Authors

Gang Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhongwei Wang, Chinese Academy of SciencesFollow
Long D. Nghiem, University of WollongongFollow
Xue-mei Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ming Xie, University of WollongongFollow
Baolong Zhao, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mengxi Zhang, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jianfeng Song, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tao He, Chinese Academy of SciencesFollow

RIS ID

98666

Publication Details

Chen, G., Wang, Z., Nghiem, L. D., Li, X., Xie, M., Zhao, B., Zhang, M., Song, J. & He, T. (2015). Treatment of shale gas drilling flowback fluids (SGDFs) by forward osmosis: membrane fouling and mitigation. Desalination, 366 113-120. Desalination

Abstract

A polyamide thin-film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membrane was fabricated and compared to a commercially available cellulose acetate (CTA) membrane for treating shale gas drilling flow-back fluids (SGDFs). The polyamide TFC membrane outperformed its CTA counterpart in terms of pure water flux and reverse salt flux when synthetic brine was used as the feed. More severe fouling was observed for the polyamide TFC membrane as compared to the CTA counterpart when treating SGDF. Very quick buildup of fouling was identified for TFC membrane but not significant for CTA membrane. Ultrafiltration pre-treatment delayed but did not alleviate fouling formation. Surface modification of the TFC membrane by poly(ethylene gycol) (PEG) grafting resulted in reduced membrane fouling and marginal decrease in water flux.