Permeability Enhancement in Ceramic Crossflow Microfiltration for Treatment of Produced Water With High Frequency Backpulse

Produced water is contaminated water that is extracted together with the oil and gas in oil production operations. Membrane filtration has the potential for a very effective separation of small droplet oil from water. The major drawback in applying this technique is the inherent fouling phenomena found in all membrane systems. High frequency backpulsing was assessed while filtering the analoque produced water with ceramic microfiltration membrane of pore size 0.1 μm, 0.2 μm and 0.5 μm respectively. This technique was able to increase the permeate permeability for all different membrane pore sizes. The results show that the frequency, duration and reverse pressure of backpulse depend on the membrane pore size. Crossflow velocity and solid particle in the produced water improve the performance of membrane.