Experimental Study of Produced Water Treatment Using Activated Carbon with Aluminum Oxide Nanoparticles, Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis Membranes

This work inspected the produced water discharged from the Amara oil field in (Misan-Iraq) to improve the quality of water before reuse and reinjection or disposal. The process of treatment included a pretreatment step using activated carbon and post-treatment using flat polymeric nanofiltration membrane (NF) (1.0 nm) and reverse osmosis membrane (RO) (0.3 nm), respectively. Therefore, activated carbon without aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles and with (Al2O3) nanoparticles (20 nm) was used to examine the removal efficiency of the total organic compound (TOC). The height of the fixed bed of activated carbon and its diameter were 35 cm and 2.5 cm, respectively. The volumetric flow rates of the produced water flowing through the activated carbon column were taken as (25, 20, 15, 10 and 5)×10-4 m3/h respectively, at transmembrane pressure (TMP) of 1.0 bar, pH equals 6, and the temperature of 25 °C. The TOC removal efficiencies attained using activated carbon without Al2O3 nanoparticles were (52, 64, 77, 83 and 87%), respectively, and (65, 72.7, 83.4, 92.5 and 95.2%) with the use of Al2O3 nanoparticles, respectively. Produced water effluent from the activated carbon column was treated by flat NF and RO membranes to reduce the total dissolved solids (TDS). The cross-flow rates through NF and RO membranes were 0.1 and 0.25 m3/h, TMP (1–12 bar) and 60 bar, respectively. The removal efficiency of TDS was enhanced up to 40% and 99.67%, respectively. In addition, the TOC removal efficiency was 100% in the effluent of the RO membrane.