Compensation Committee Report

Presented to:

Marcellus, Utica, & Point Pleasant Shale Conference

Columbus, OH

April 16-17, 2014

Advanced Treatment of Flowback

Water Using Magnetic Ballast

Clarification and Vortex

Generating Membrane Systems

for Discharge

Ben Pakzadeh, Ph.D., P.E.

Authors

Southern Research Institute

Behrang (Ben) Pakzadeh PhD, PE, Brian Mastin, PhD, Bill Chatterton,

Austin Vaillancourt, Jay Renew, PE, Jay Wos

M2 Water Treatment Inc.

Dave Philbrook, PE

BKT

Joon H. Min, PhD, Allen Chan, JK Kim, PhD, & HJ Hwang, PhD

Research Partnership to Secure Energy for

America for Project Funding

Kent Perry of RPSEA for his support.

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Project partners:

Southern Research Institute,

BKT United (Anaheim, CA),

M2 Water Treatment Inc. (Raleigh, NC)

Received an award from Research Partnership to Secure Energy

for America (RPSEA) to develop an innovative approach for

treatment of shale hydraulic fracturing water to produce National

Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) quality water for

discharge and/or reuse.

Flowback Water vs. Produced Water

• Flowback water

– 10 to 40% of the water used in fracturing is recovered in about 7-10

days after a hydraulic fracturing job

– High flow rate

– Contains clays, chemical additives, low to moderate total dissolved

solids (TDS)

• Produced water

– Naturally occurring water in shale formation

– Low flow rate

– High TDS levels

Flowback and Produced Water Characteristics

• Free and dispersed oil and grease

– Oil droplets (sub-micron to 100s of microns);

– Aliphatic;

– Aromatic hydrocarbons

• Suspended solids, sand, turbidity

• Dissolved oil

– Soluble aromatic hydrocarbons

– Organic acid (e.g., BETX, fatty acids, naphthenic, phenols)

• Dissolved solids (e.g., hardness, metals, NORMs, Na+, Cl-, etc.)

1. Magnetic ballast clarification (MBC)

2. Vortex-generating Fil-Max membrane system (FMX)

3. Conventional reverse osmosis (RO)

4. Hydrogel adsorbent

5. Solidification/stabilization

Approach Combines Five Technologies

Treatment Technologies Identified for this Project

1. Free and dispersed oil and grease – Hydrocyclone

Oil-Water Separator

2. Suspended solids, sand, turbidity – MBC or FMX

3. Dissolved oil – FMX-UF

4. Dissolved solids – FMX-NF and RO

5. FMX-NF and RO concentrate – Hydrogel or

Solidification/ Stabilization

Objectives

• Treat flowback water for reuse or discharge

• Perform bench-scale studies using small MBC, FMX, and RO

units

– This presentation provides preliminary performance data

from MBC and FMX bench-scale studies

– Flux and flow rates for FMX and RO units

• Conduct column studies for metals and NORMs removal using

membrane concentrates

• Solidification and stabilization studies

• Process integration and optimization

• Field pilot work

Process Integration

P-18

Oil

Separator

MBC

Clarifier

Oil and

Organics

Sludge

Handling

FMX – NF

membraneRO

membrane

Precipitation /

Solidification

OR

Hydrogel Adsorption

Membrane

Concentrate

Clean Water

To reuse

To reuse

To reuse or

discharge

Magnetic Ballast Clarification (MBC)

• Clarification using magnetite and polymer

• Polymer attaches suspended solids to

magnetite, forms a dense magnetic floc, and

settles rapidly

• Magnetic floc removed from the water by

gravity and magnetically

• Magnetite is cleaned and recycled in-situ

What is Magnetite?

• Fully oxidized form of iron (Fe304)

• 5 times density of water

• Magnetic

• Non-toxic

• Commonly found in the environment

Magnetic Ballast Clarification (MBC)

Magnetic Ballast Clarification (MBC)

Vortex Generating Membrane (FMX)

• Patented Fouling Resistance Membrane Filtration System

• Developed to overcome fouling in conventional membrane

filtration technology for high solids, high density, and high

viscosity wastewaters.

• Reduces chemical cleaning (less chemicals)

• Better matching of membrane types (MF, UF, or NF) to

applications.

• Current applications include anaerobic digester effluent

treatment, chemical manufacturing, oil & gas industrial waste.

FMX - Technical Background

• FMX utilizes a Karman Vortex to

achieve fouling resistance.

• Karman Vortex - strong swirling

pattern generating strong turbulence

with minimum energy.

• The rotating blades generate Karman

Vortex and turbulent flows.

• Foulants on the boundary layers are

disrupted and carried away by the

feed stream.

Vortex Generator System

FMX Custom Systems

FMX are installed in parallel to increase throughput and sometimes in series with

Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems to improve TDS removal efficiency.

Hydrogel Adsorption for Metals Removal

Hydrogel Media

(~500 micron size)

• Low cost single use

media for selective

metals removal

• Developed at Caltech

• To be evaluated for

high chloride produced

water

• Pilot tested at EPA and

funded by DOE, EPA,

NSF

FMX Membrane - Concentrate Treatment

FMX Permeate Wastewater

Concentrate with metals

FMX

Hydrogel Vessel

Hydrogel Waste Reduction

• Waste hydrogel

adsorption media volume

is reduced by > 90%

• Simply air drying the

spent media to reduce

disposal cost

(dehydrated media

meets TCLP)

Solidification / Stabilization (S/S)

• S/S includes mixing waste with

coal fly ash, gypsum and/or an

activation agent (i.e., cement or

lime).

• S/S consists of two processes:

1. Solidification – Physically

encapsulating the waste to

improve physical properties.

2. Stabilization – Converting

contaminants to less mobile &

less toxic forms.

Solidification / Stabilization

• USEPA regards S/S to be an

established treatment process for

more than 57 wastes.

• S/S processes have been effective in

the immobilization of NORM-

contaminated wastes.

• Fly ash and gypsum are coal-fired

power plant byproducts (waste to

resource opportunity)

Flowback Water Samples - Characteristics

(Southern Research Institute)

Parameter Bakken Produced Water Eagle Ford Flowback Water

pH 5.4 7.05

TDS (mg/L) 336889 12892

Chloride (mg/L) 186755 3989

Sulfate (mg/L) <500 <100

Sodium (mg/L) 97182 5960

Calcium (mg/L) 18520 409

Magnesium (mg/L) 1287 72

Potassium (mg/L) 6957 81

Boron (mg/L) 451 44

Silica (mg/L) 118 68

Iron (mg/L) 157 12

Strontium (mg/L) 81 2.6

Barium (mg/L) 29 2.9

MBC Jar Test Performance Data

Treatability tests with

polymers/chemicals With

magnetite

With polymer

only Produced

Water from

Bakken Shale Produced

Water from

Bakken Shale

MBC Jar Test Performance

MBC Jar Test Performance Data

Application Parameter Untreated MBC

(Treated) % Removal

Produced Water

(Bakken Shale)

Suspended

Solids (mg/l) 314 6 98.0

Turbidity (NTU) 417 32.7 92.2

Silica (mg/L) 41.7 6.5 84.4

Total Iron

(mg/L) 157 7.2 95.4

FMX-B Membrane Equipment

Bench-Scale & Pilot-Scale

Bench-Scale Pilot-Scale

• Membrane selection

• Flux and flow rate studies

• Efficacy evaluations

Bakken Shale Produced Water Bench Test

Membrane Type Name Flux (LMH)

UF Membranes

FU-S20-5 116

FU-N10 164

FU-N5 62

FU-SR1-1 66

NF Membranes

FN-N10 49

FN-S40 40

FN-D50 No flow

FN-D90 20

FN-T10 No flow

Bakken Shale Produced Water Pilot Test

Membrane Flux (LMH)

Conductivity reduction

Turbidity Reduction

TS reduction

TSS reduction

Iron reduction

FN-N10 74 58% 98.8% 6.2% >98% 90%

Feed Permeate Concentrate

NF Membrane in Produced Water Test

Nano-filtration achieves 90% iron removal

Conclusions

• > 98% TSS removal and > 95% Fe removal

• Treated water is suitable for reuse in fracking operations (after

disinfection)

• Hardness removal using FMX-NF reduces scaling tendencies

• NPDES quality water can be achieved for produced and flowback

waters with < 60,000 mg/L TDS (in progress)

• Cost-benefit analysis will be performed to determine CAPEX and

OPEX for the treatment process

• This project will allow for the development of this technology through

DOE/RPSEA funds, thereby reducing the financial risk to small

producers/vendors.

Advanced Treatment of Flowback Water Using Magnetic Ballast

Clarification and Vortex Generating Membrane Systems for Discharge

Questions?

Ben Pakzadeh, Ph.D., P.E., Southern Research Institute

pakzadeh@southernresearch.org

Dave Philbrook, PE, M2 Water Treatment Inc.

davephilbrook@m2wt.com

Joon Min, Ph.D., BKT

jhm@bkt21.com