Cleaning strategies in ceramic microfiltration membranes fouled by oil and particulate matter in produced water

Produced water is contaminated water that is extracted together with the oil in oil production operations. Membrane filtration has the potential for a very effective separation of oil from water. The major drawback in applying this technique is the inherent fouling phenomena found in all membrane systems. At a certain point, fouling necessitates an extended cleaning to regain the original permeability of the membrane. This study evaluated the cleaning efficiency of different commercial products that are biodegradable i.e. Ultrasil 115, Ultrasil 73, Surfactron CD 50, Derquim+, etc on fouled membrane by analogue produced water with membrane nominal pore sizes of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 μm. Full restoration of fouled membrane could not be achieved by single cleaning step. The total cleaning efficiency depends on temperature, concentration and TMP of cleaning solution.