(42x) A Hybrid Dead-End Cross-Flow Forward Osmosis System for Evaluation of High Recovery Osmotic Flux Performance with Produced Water

Water management during the extraction of petroleum products from earth is a major issue in oil and gas production industries. Many of these waters are challenging to manage because of oil content, high salinity, fouling and scaling potential, and overall toxicity.  Forward osmosis (FO), has recently been considered as a means of treating or concentrating this water because of its low fouling propensity and relative independence from osmotic pressure limitations.    In this work, we propose a new method for testing the efficacy of forward osmosis in treating produced waters using a hybrid dead-end cross-flow FO system that enables all of the conventional testing metrics to be measured (water and salt flux), but do so at high recoveries and with small volumes of feed. We demonstrate the usefulness of this system at testing osmotic flux at high recoveries using a real produced water provided by Chevron.  The unprocessed produced water contains approximately 7,500 TDS and osmotic recovery of 90% is demonstrated using the hybrid dead-end cross-flow FO system.