Microfiltration in recycling of Marcellus Shale flowback water: Solids removal and potential fouling of polymeric microfiltration membranes

• The feasibility of microfiltration to separate solids created by mixing flowback water and AMD mixture.
• Submicron particles contained in flowback water caused severe membrane fouling.
• Submicron particles are mainly comprised iron oxide.
• High stability of the submicron particles under high ionic strength condition is due to organic coatings.

Flowback water generated during unconventional gas extraction is of great concern due to its high total dissolved solids (TDS), radioactive elements and organic matter. Abandoned mine drainage (AMD) is a water source that is often located in the vicinity of gas wells and can be mixed with flowback water to reduce fresh water usage for hydraulic fracturing. The feasibility of microfiltration to separate solids created by mixing actual flowback water and AMD was evaluated using a bench-scale setup. Hydrophilic polyvinyldiene fluoride (PVDF) membrane with a pore size of 0.22 μm was as a model polymeric microfiltration membrane.Severe membrane fouling occurred during the first 5 min of filtration with one flowback/AMD mixture while no significant fouling was observed for a different mixture. It was found that the flowback water that caused membrane fouling contained stable iron-based colloids with an average particles size of 0.2 μm, especially in the samples collected early in the flowback period. These colloids were not formed by mixing flowback water containing high barium concentration with AMD rich in sulfate but were originally present in the flowback water. Stability of these sub-micron colloidal particles at high ionic strength of the flowback water is attributed to organic coating on the particle surface.

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