Abstract
Application of the nanofiltration (NF) and ultrafiltration (UF) processes is applied in the handling of water that is produced raw. The application has been investigated in the current day through various studies (Wang 14). The experiment of the processes of both nanofiltration and ultrafiltration is conducted in the laboratory unit which is operated in a pattern of cross flow (Ashaghi, Ebrahimi, & Czermak, 46). The study that was conducted in Oilfield of North Sea using the process of membranes of ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF) indicated that the content of hydrocarbon decreased from 50 mg/l to 2 mg/l which recorded 96% removal by the use of UF membrane. Different types of hollow fiber membrane were used in the study like poly vinyl chloride (PVC) of UF membrane, two varying membranes of poly phenyl sulfone PPSU NF and polyether sulfone (PES) NF (Wilks 42). It was found that treated water turbidity is higher than 95% by using the membranes of UF and NF (Bilstad & Espedal, 56). The paper reviews the application of nanofiltration (NF) and ultrafiltration (UF) in the treatment of water.
Introduction
Nanofiltration (NF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes are used in the process of separation of water through industrial application (Xu & Heil 48). Through the application of industrial in UF and NF, the process is aimed at removing suspended solids, oil and organic matters in the water (Bryan and Tzahi 78). The water that is put under the process is considered to contain hydrocarbons oil, organic and other materials considered toxic (Yang, and Wu 50). Due to the nature of water, it is important to treat the water for other uses in the environment (Al-Rashdi, Somerfield, & Hilal 65).
Researchers have been trying to perform treatment of water with traces of oil in the fields. Various studies have investigated water pre-treatment on the NF membrane and reverse osmosis (Jinhong et al, 540). Microfiltration and UF were also added for the pre-treatment of the produced water while the NF and reverse osmosis were used to decrease the content of salt as a final treatment (Cherdron and Herold Fin et al 505). With reference to separation methods which are utilized during the treatment of the produced water (Zarrinkhameh and Hosseini 350), UF has proven to be the most successful process due to its high efficiency of extraction of the traces of oil (Xu and Xu 87). The process also requires a small space, lower costs of energy and there are no chemical additives needed for the treatment (Bagheripour, and Hosseini 47). The technology of ultrafiltration is the recent innovation that is being used in the treatment of water (Yang78). It can be integrated in either a small or large scale depending on the material of the membrane and the production process and condition membrane (Alsalhy, Almukhtar, and Alani 79).
The study that was conducted in Oilfield of North Sea using the process of membranes of ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF) indicated that the content of hydrocarbon decreased from 50 mg/l to 2 mg/l which recorded 96% removal by the use of UF membrane (Hirogoshi, & Noboru 66). Some heavy metals such as Cu were eliminated by 95% (Ebrahimi et al., 49). The process of RO and other pre-treatment of UF and NF were seen as important techniques used in application for treating produced water (Georges and Andrew 47). Various research has indicated that the water can be used for various activities such as irrigation after the removal of impurities (Yin and Deng 67). The application of either process of ultrafiltration (UF) or nanofiltration (NF) has been experimented in the treatment of the raw water which is produced with impurities (Gholami, Hosseini, and Gholami 36). Various fibre membranes, which are hollow were used in the study so as to measure the turbidity, COD, TDS, SO4, Oil and Cl-1 in the efficient removal of various impurities. The study also focuses on the techniques of the NF and UF in the enhancement of the outflowing quality of water (Ghaemi et al. 103).
The demand of the chemical oxygen (160 mg/l) and the content of oil (26.8 mg/l) were realized after the treatment, according to the set limits that are allowed by the standards of the water quality set by world health organization (Ansari, Moghadassi and Hosseini 45).
The last composition of 110 mg/l (SO4-2) and 48.4 mg/l (NO3) components in the produced water after the agreement about treatment with the allowed limits of the world health organization whereas 8900 mg/l (Cl-1) component is not allowed by the limits (He & Jiang, 85). The use of the fibre hollow membrane of PVC, PES and PPSU has been seen as the method of removing salinity from the water which is produced ( Hendrix and Vankelecom 20)
Experiment
Experimental procedures and System
The wastewater is pumped from the UF feed tank through the pump into the membrane module of the hollow fibre. The hollow fibre measures 20 cm which is more effective and the number of the fibre used totals to eight with an average area of 12cm by 2 cm (Jiao and Ming 37). The temperature of the feed is constant at 35 degrees. The UF membrane is prepared from the PVC while that of NF is prepared from Poly phenyl sulfone (PPSU) and polyether sulfone (PES) (Hosseini and Moghadassi 56). The experiment was conducted in the process of batch circulation where the solution that is concentrated was transferred back to the feed tank while permeate stream is flowed to UF permeate process (Jin et al 40). UF membrane is mainly used for high molecular elimination, oil content, suspended oil or organic or inorganic molecules. This suggests that the membrane can be employed as a pre-treatment of NF membrane (Kim and Fell 2). The NF operating pressure is six bar while the pressure of trans-membrane was determined through pressure gap between permeate and concreate streams. The solutions from the flow of permeate and feedback were sampled for analysis (Lu, Chen, and Li, 19). For every sample, both the efficiency of removal and flux volume were measured at steady state which were established at an average of 30 min (Zhang 89).
Results and Discussion
It is clear that waste water need to be pre-treated using the process of ultrafiltration or/and microfiltration before the final process of treatment by the use of Nanofiltration or the units of reverse osmosis with the aim of removing all toxic materials which had the influence on RO or NF membrane performance (Li, and Li, 40). Due to the increased demand of the pure water as a result on increased population and sustenance evolution concept, there is need to re-use water for solving various economic and environmental problems that are caused by water scarcity such as irrigation (Vankelecom and Gevers 52). Due to this, there is a need to treat water observing various limits put by WHO (Liu, Liu, and Li 43).
The results show that using turbidity is reduced from 9.5 to 0.48 units of Nephelometric Turbidity through the use of PVC hollow fibre of the membrane of ultrafiltration which was 95% (Hashim, and Abed, 56). More decrease of turbidity is observable through the process of NF membrane. Use of the PVC membrane makes turbidity within the allowed limits of WHO (Li, Lu, and Na, 150). The result indicates that the concentration of TDS in the treated water is more than then the accepted levels of the standards of drinking water (Mohammadi 78).
The experiment reveals that COD removal from the raw water from the feed tank is decreased from high levels of 383 to 160 mg/l with the use of hollow PVC fibre UF membrane and the magnitude is less than the allowed limits set by WHO (Mobarakabad and Hosseini 147). The experiment has also indicated that components of CI-1 were decreased from 8900 mg/L in the low water with the highest achievements being 89% after conducting NF1 to NF3 (Mondal 168). The value magnitude concentration of Cl-1 inside the permeate streams of the three NF is still higher than the allowed limit by WHO (Al-Rashdi, Somerfield & Hilal 67).
The experiment indicates that SO-24 analysis in the samples of post treatment is viewed to comply with the required limits by WHO (Mohammadi 5). Elimination of NO3 through the application of membranes of UF were 20%, but the use of the three NF has indicated and effective removal of the substance up to 99% (Nghiem 306). The analysis after the three NF indicates that the components of NO3 are effectively removed being in the acceptable range of the quality standards of the WHO (Nermen and Nakhla 7). The process is mainly focusing on the removal of ions of the heavy metals in the waste water which attribute to toxicity of water which affects the health of people and environment (Nagarale and Shahi 302). Due to the set standards, it is imperative to eliminate all the heavy metals from the wastewater in various industries (Celebi, Lin, and Riffle 112).
It is evident from the experiment that the result of heavy metals is either through pre-or post-filtration (Nunes 30). After the process, the water is able to fall under the allowed limit of WHO excluding the components of Cd and Pb components (Okuno and Uragami, 60). It is known that the ions of Pb and Cd are dangerous heavy metals that need to be eliminated from the waste since they are dangerous to human health (Saljoughi and Mohammadi 75). The experiment has demonstrated that the use of UF hollow fiber membrane, is efficient in the removal of both Cd and Pb ions within the stream of permeate which is 100% recording the highest elimination of toxics (Soroko and Spill 34).
Conclusion
The membranes of hollow fiber of various processes of separation were utilized for raw produced water treatment with the main aim of re-using the water (Xu, Huang, Lu, and Chen 39). The use of UF has shown that all heavy metals have complied with the required limits of quality standards set by WHO (Zhang 76). The research found that permeate flow of the three-hollow fibre are found to be higher than the allowed limits. It can be concluded that these membranes are appropriate for removing various contamination of water (Ulbricht, 198). There is recommendation of using membrane of reverse osmosis so as to treat the water and fall between the allowed quality standards of the WHO (Vandezande and Vankelecom 380).
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