Some Current Technologies of Produced Water Treatment: An Overview

Produced water is considered the largest waste stream generated in the oil and gas industries, which has a high concentration of hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other pollutants. As the activity in the industries increases, the generated produced water has also increased worldwide. Therefore, treating it for reusing becomes very important from an environmental point of view. This paper aims to examine the importance of produced water treatment, the capacity of produced water as well as management, the reuse of oilfield-produced water, and some of the current methods available for produced water treatment. Production water treatment could be achieved with different processes or methods including physical, chemical, and biological approaches. The physical method usually involves filtration systems that uses screens, sand, etc to eliminate large suspended materials. The chemical method is a process of decreasing the harmful nature of an effluent by using some particular chemical. It also helps to recover appreciated by-products from harmful wastes, which reduces the general cost of waste disposal. While the biological method is to degrade organic compounds that are existing in the waste by microorganisms (aerobic and/or anaerobic). Raw-produced water is toxic, by using suitable technology, it can be treated for different reuse even as drinking water, especially for countries that suffer from water scarcity.