Every day, a minimum of 40 million m³ of hazardous oily wastewater, known as “Produced Water”, are ‎discharged from oil and gas industries into the environment. Therefore, efficient and sustainable treatment methods have become a necessity. Membrane filtration is considered as ‎promising separation technology in this field‎. Nevertheless, detailed studies ‎interpreting the fouling mechanisms are limited. For instance, the influence of oil droplet size on the membrane fouling mechanisms is not completely understood. In this study, the separation efficiency and fouling mechanisms of polyethersulfone and ceramic membranes exhibiting different average pore size in range of UF and MF during purifying of synthetic oily wastewater are investigated.

This study aims at investigating the influence of oil droplet size distribution on the filterability of oily nano-‎‎emulsions, in addition to determining type and chronological sequence of the expected fouling mechanisms.‎ This work is a part of a ‎research project focusing on evaluating and enhancing the feasibility of UF membranes as a polishing step in the treatment of produced water...