emerging issues/reuse

BRE NT A L SPA C H

Produced water and

salinity management:
The desalination frontier
INNOVATIONS IN SALINITY
MANAGEMENT CURRENTLY
BEING CULTIVATED BY THE
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND
GAS INDUSTRY MAY
ULTIMATELY BE A
SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT TO
MUNICIPAL WATER
TREATMENT.

s noted by Koplos (2014), the contemporary boom in unconventional oil and gas (O&G) development has had a transformative impact on the US energy sector. For those who recall the
oil crisis in the early 1970s, even the possibility of the United
States becoming a net exporter of hydrocarbons seemed unfathomable less than a decade ago (International Energy Agency, 2013). However,
the type of rapid growth experienced in US O&G production does not come
without growing pains, some of which are manifest in water-related issues. As
is the case in the municipal sector, these issues span the entire water cycle from
supply to treatment to residuals management.
For example, the process of hydraulic fracturing, which has facilitated the
unparalleled expansion of unconventional O&G resource extraction, commonly requires several million gallons of water for each of the thousands of
production wells throughout the United States (Cooley and Donnelly, 2012).
The significance of this demand is underscored in Texas, which not
only produces three times as much crude oil and more than
twice as much natural gas as the second-ranked
state in each category, but is also the
nations second-most populous state

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47

TABLE 1

Terminology of unconventional O&G development fluids

Term

Definition*

Fate

Salinity Range
mg/L

Hydraulic fracturing
(or frack) water

Water that is used to create the fracturing fluid. The source could
be drinking water, surface water, groundwater, or recycled produced water.

Injection

Varies with fracturing fluid

specifications

Hydraulic fracturing
fluid

A combination of water, sand, and chemical additives that is injected down the wellbore and into the production zone during
hydraulic fracturing to create artificial fissures (fractures). These
allow oil and natural gas to flow into the well more easily.

Injection

Greater than hydraulic fracturing

water, depending on the additives

Formation water

The water naturally present in the production zone that comes to

the surface through the wellbore. Along with flowback water, the
mixture returning to the surface is known as produced water.

NA

100400,000+

Flowback water

Fracturing fluids that return to the surface through the well after
hydraulic fracturing is complete. Along with formation water, the
mixture returning to the surface is known as produced water.

Extraction

Similar to injected fracturing fluid

Produced water

The combination of flowback and formation water that returns to

the surface along with the oil and natural gas. Produced water can
be disposed of through underground injection, industrial treatment prior to being returned to a surface water body, or through
recycling and reuse on another fracturing operation.

Extraction

Similar to formation water, but may

vary depending on fracturing fluid
volume and salinity

NAnot applicable, O&Goil and gas

*American Water Works Association, 2013
The O&G industry term for the primary fluid used in a hydraulic fracturing fluid is base fluid (or carrier fluid).
Produced Water Society, 2014

with the second-highest growth rate

(EIA, 2014; US Census Bureau,
2013). Texas is also in the midst of
a persistent drought, exacerbating
the competition for scarce water
resources among various beneficial
uses. After a well has been subjected
to hydraulic fracturing, naturally
occurring formation water that is
often highly saline or of otherwise
poor quality is released along with
the hydrocarbons; this water may
require advanced treatment for
reuse or proper disposal. Even if disposal of some contaminated water
or treatment residuals is unavoidable, options that are available, feasible, permitable, and economical
may be limited.
For most people outside the O&G
industry, opinions about hydraulic
fracturing are likely to be shaped by
the controversy commonly reported
in the mainstream media; the practice
has been purportedly linked to the
contamination of both groundwater
and surface water, as well as the
aggravation of water scarcity, among
other environmental concerns. Consequently, with often limited firsthand
technical knowledge of the practice,
many water supply and treatment
professionals view hydraulic fractur48

ing with wariness. However, there is

an entrepreneurial element of the
unconventional O&G boom that is
relatively rare in the municipal water
treatment sector, particularly with
respect to salinity management, and
the benefit of experience along this
desalination frontier may ultimately
prove to be invaluable to the future
of potable water.
With some traditional drinking
water sources becoming over-allocated, compromised, or stressed
under drought conditions, alternatives such as seawater, brackish
groundwater, and recycled wastewater are emerging at the forefront of
long-term portfolio planning. Notably, all of these require desalination
and commensurate concentrate management. Thus, whatever skepticism
the drinking water sector may have
regarding unanswered questions
about the impact of hydraulic fracturing, it is nevertheless important
for potable water professionals to
sincerely ask ourselves what we can
learn about salinity management
from the boom in unconventional
O&G development. The purpose of
this article is to initiate this discourse. First, however, we should be
conversant.

NOVEMBER 2014 | JOURNAL AWWA 106:11 | ALSPACH

2014 American Water Works Association

PRODUCED WATER 101

Although the process of hydraulic
fracturing was described by Koplos
(2014), there are several associated
terms that are essential to understand in greater detail in order to
frame the context of the water supply and treatment issues germane to
unconventional O&G development.
Definitions of these terms are provided in Table 1, along with corresponding columns indicating both
the fate and salinity of the type of
fluid defined by each term; the terms
are listed in order of progression
through the hydraulic fracturing
process. Despite the precise definition of produced water cited in
Table 1, this term is often also used
colloquially in reference to formation water in the literature, ignoring
the impact of the flowback water on
the blend of aqueous fluids extracted
from an unconventional O&G well
(whether unintentional or not).
However, these two classifications of
water are not technically the same,
with the quantity and quality of produced water depending on the relative contribution of the quantity and
quality of its two components: flowback and formation water. Because
these characteristics can be highly

variable (and, in the case of fracturing fluid, also proprietary), Table 1

describes the salinity ranges in broad
and general terms. Although this can
be unsatisfying for professionals
seeking specific values to reference,
the table not only accurately reflects
the physical reality but also underscores the important point that
water quality variability renders produced water among the most challenging sources to treat. A second
point that is even more critical for
the purposes of this discussion is that
produced water can be extremely
saline, with total dissolved solids
(TDS) concentrations in excess of
400,000 mg/L in some cases. By
comparison, the global average seawater TDS concentration is typically
given as about 35,000 mg/L.
In addition to a basic knowledge of
produced-water terminology and
salinity characteristics, it is also useful
to understand the translation of unit
expressions commonly used in the
O&G industry. Accordingly, the units
often used in produced-water literature for volume, flow, and specific
energy, which are typically based on
the quantity of barrels, are summarized in Table 2; one barrel is the
equivalent of 42 US gallons. For ease
of comparison, this article will reference units of volume based on gallons, which is more familiar to the
potable water treatment community.

DESALINATION TECHNOLOGY
The need for desalination in rapidly expanding unconventional
O&G production has prompted
enterprising equipment suppliers to
develop innovative desalination processes designed to be more mobile,
treat higher-salinity water more efficiently, reduce energy consumption,
and accommodate more degraded
water quality with less pretreatment.
Although these new processes may
lack a substantial track record of
demonstrated effectiveness in the
field and can have high costs, O&G
companies have been willing to
invest in more expensive but potentially promising technologies to help

Commonly used produced water units of measure

TABLE 2
Category

Unit

Expression(s)

Volume

Barrels*

bbl

Flow/capacity

Barrels per day

bbl/day
bbl/d
bpd

Specific energy

Kilowatt-hours per barrel

kWh/bbl

*1 bbl = 42 US gal

Desalination technology cost and energy comparison*

TABLE 3

Desalination technology
Class

Reference
Costs
(Life Cycle)
$/kgal

Examples

Total Specific Energy

Consumption
kWh/kgal

Membrane processes

Reverse osmosis

1116

Thermal processes

Vapor compression

1.90

~ 30

Multi-effect distillation

3.80

4256

Multistage flash distillation

4.40

70112

*Colorado School of Mines, 2009

Values cited are applicable for seawater desalination

address their water management

issues. Because this is a much different paradigm than that used in the
municipal water treatment industrywhich relies primarily on
proven, cost-effective technologies
it is instructive to explore the reasons underlying this stark contrast.
Although the most common desalination process used for potable and
reuse water applications in the
United States is reverse osmosis
(RO), the market for municipalscale desalination predates the
invention of RO technology. Prior to
the advent of the membrane-based
RO process, thermal technologies
such as multi-effect distillation and
multistage flash distillation were
used to desalinate seawater for
municipal, agricultural, and industrial use in extremely arid or remote,
water-limited locations around the
globe, particularly in the Middle
East. However, although the energy
requirements for these technologies
are insensitive to feedwater salinity
levels, the specific energy (e.g.,
energy per unit volume treated)
associated with RO decreases sig-

nificantly with TDS concentrations.

Consequently, because the domestic
market for less-saline brackish water
desalination has historically far
exceeded that of its nascent seawater counterpart, the substantially
less-expensive RO process is used
almost exclusively for TDS reduction applications in the United
States. In essence, the development
of RO helped facilitate the widespread use of brackish water for
municipal applications by virtue of
making it more affordable than was
previously possible with thermalbased technology.
The advantages of RO over thermal desalination processes are most
readily apparent by comparing costs
and energy requirements (summarized in Table 3). Although benchmark cost and energy values for
thermal technologies vary widely in
the literature, the data in Table 3, as
reported by the Colorado School of
Mines (2009) in conjunction with
the use of these technologies for
produced-water treatment, are sufficiently representative for comparative analysis. Although the life-cycle

ALSPACH | 106:11 JOURNAL AWWA | NOVEMBER 2014

2014 American Water Works Association

49

Ideal Attributes of a Produced-Water

Desalination Technology
Optimization for relatively small-scale capacity
Mobile or skid-mounted construction to facilitate transportation and
repeated redeployment at different wells
Ability to accommodate poor water quality with potentially very high salinity
Flexibility to treat highly variable water quality (with respect to both different
wells and the fluctuation of produced-water quality with time at any
one well)
Relatively economical without leveraging the use of an external thermal
heat source

costs for the various technologies are

somewhat comparable, particularly
for RO and vapor compression, the
figures for the thermal processes
assume the use of an available thermal heat source (e.g., in a power
plant cogeneration application) at
minimal cost. Without factoring in
the benefit of such a source, the relative costs in Table 3 would be more
similar in proportion to the reported
specific energy-consumption figures.
In this context, the substantial economic advantage of RO is more
readily apparent.
However, the ability of RO to
accommodate hypersaline water is
limited by the concentrations of both
sparingly soluble salts (which can
scale the membranes) and the salinity
itself (which can necessitate prohibitively high feed pressures). Although
the specific feasible upper bound of
salinity will vary with scalant levels,
50

the membrane product used, temperature, nonscalant-related fouling

potential, and other factors, a useful
benchmark value is approximately
double the average global seawater
strength, or roughly 70,000 mg/L.
The practical limit is typically much
lower, as even solutions of pure
sodium chloride (which is nonscaling
at these concentrations) approaching
this threshold will engender very low
recovery, and the high pressures
required would not only substantially
increase the operating cost but may
also compromise the mechanical
integrity of some equipment.
Although produced-water quality can
vary widely, salinity in excess of
100,000 mg/L is not uncommon. In
fact, as shown in Table 1, the Produced Water Society (2014) reports
that TDS levels can range from as low
as 10 mg/L up to 400,000 mg/L or
more, a ceiling far above the capabil-

NOVEMBER 2014 | JOURNAL AWWA 106:11 | ALSPACH

2014 American Water Works Association

ity of RO. In addition, even minimally

saline produced water may still contain low concentrations of hydrocarbons even with pretreatment, and
these compounds could irreversibly
foul the RO membranes.
All four of the technologies listed
in Table 3 have a long history of successful operation in potable water
treatment applications around the
world. However, considering the high
cost of the more conventional thermal processes (such as those cited in
Table 3) and the water quality limitations of RO, none of these technologies is particularly well suited for
produced-water treatment. Consequently, viable and innovative alternatives are essential for desalinating
produced water, with ideal attributes
summarized in the sidebar at left.
Accordingly, the need for such
technology has prompted the unconventional O&G industry to test and
deploy a wide range of advanced
technologies:
Leading-edge membrane-based
processes (e.g., forward osmosis)
High-efficiency thermal desalination (e.g., mechanical vapor
recompression)
Membrane-thermal hybrid processes (e.g., membrane distillation)
Multiple proprietary products
based on each of these three classes
of innovative desalination technology are currently in use in producedwater treatment applications, but
none has yet been used at more significant municipal-scale water and
reuse treatment facilities. However,
while the landscape of producedwater treatment is currently fluid,
the eventual maturation of several
best available technologies could
ultimately translate very well to the
desalination of more challenging
sources for potable use, particularly
for cases in which distributed or satellite treatment is appropriate.

CONCENTRATE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
Even innovative desalination processes well suited to accommodating
produced water generate a concen-

trate stream that must be effectively

managed. The high salinity and otherwise poor quality (e.g., possible presence of hydrocarbons) can preclude
permitted discharge to a surface
waterreceiving body. Deep well injection is a common concentrate-disposal
method, but this practice eliminates a
potential resource (albeit a poor-quality one) from the water cycle (and is
potentially linked to induced seismicity (Frohlich, 2012)). Although zero
liquid discharge (ZLD) is technically
achievable, it is among the most
expensive water treatment practices.
Bond and Veerapeneni (2008) cite
ZLD costs in the range of $4$13 per
kilogallon treated, depending on the
technology used; however, this does
not include disposal of the solids,
which may be classified as hazardous,
further increasing the associated management costs. Although the unit cost
(i.e., dollars per volume treated) of
ZLD can be much higher than those
associated with desalination (as
shown in Table 3), it is important to
note that ZLD is applied to the concentrate of a desalination process, and
thus the flows are much lower. Consequently, the economic disparity
between ZLD and desalination is not
as significant when the costs are
expressed in terms of dollars per unit
time (i.e., normalizing for flow),
rather than per unit of volume treated.
In any case, as with the desalination
process itself, more innovative strategies are needed for the unique challenges associated with producedwater concentrate management.
Ideal strategies involve reuse of the
concentrate, thereby not only minimizing or eliminating a waste that
may otherwise be costly to dispose
of, but also alleviating some of the
water demand exerted by unconventional O&G production. Because
some drilling and well management
operations either require or allow
very saline supplies, several potential
opportunities for concentrate reuse
are being actively leveraged. For
example, completion fluids are
applied before placing a well into
production to provide some measure

TABLE 4

Examples of saline solution specific weights*

Specific
Weight
lbs/gal

Column
Pressure
psi/100 ft

Freshwater

8.3

43.3

Seawater

8.6

44.7

Saturated water

10

52.0

Solution

*At approximately 20C

Texas Brine Co., 2014
Variable concentration is not significant for this analysis.
Ten-pound brine

of hardware protection or to prevent

damage to the subsurface formation;
the water matrix for these fluids may
be composed of a brine solution. The
use of concentrates is also becoming
more common as part of the fluid for
hydraulic fracturing fluid. However,
this practice would also increase the
salinity of the flowback and produced water, making the desalination
treatment step progressively more
challenging with each iterative cycle.
Perhaps the most interesting concentrate-reuse application is the use
as a kill fluid, which is applied to a
well to prevent outward flow without
the use of mechanical pressure control equipment at the surface. Because
this fluid must be heavy to effect the
required cessation of flow, concentrated brine is often used. One company operating a produced-water

as ten-pound brine, exerts 20%

more column pressure than fresh
water and 16% more than seawater,
thus serving as a more efficient kill
fluid per unit of well depth. In this
case, the produced-water concentrate
has more practical and economic
value than a less-saline supply, which
would require a greater quantity of
sodium chloride to create a solution
of sufficient concentration. The reuse
of the concentrate also precludes the
need to secure additional freshwater
supplies from a natural source, circumventing concerns about competition, availability, maintaining environmental flows, and permitting.
This particular concentrate-management strategy may not be available or feasible in all locations, and
the scale may not align with larger
municipal water treatment opera-

The advantages of RO over thermal desalination

processes are most readily apparent by comparing
costs and energy requirements.

treatment facility in Texas Eagle Ford

shale play along the Gulf Coast not
only sells all of its desalination concentrate for use as kill fluid, but it
also takes the unusual step of adding
salt to the concentrate flow to
increase the salinity (and thus the specific weight of the solution) for its
customer. The value of this practice is
illustrated in Table 4, which shows
the specific weight of several solutions of varying salinity. A saturated
solution of sodium chloride, known

tions; nonetheless it is an instructive

example of a characteristically unconventional solution in an industry that
is defined by such innovations.

LESSONS FROM THE FRONTIER

Just as the development of RO
more than 50 years ago enabled the
cost-effective desalination of brackish water supplies, so too has the
process of hydraulic fracturing
allowed the extraction of O&G that
was considered economically unre-

ALSPACH | 106:11 JOURNAL AWWA | NOVEMBER 2014

2014 American Water Works Association

51

coverable only a decade ago. Today

the combination of produced-water
treatment challenges, highly saline
concentrate disposal, and water
resource constraints have compelled
the unconventional O&G industry to
be at the forefront of desalination
advancement, which has in turn
helped to spur the ongoing and
unprecedented O&G boom in the
United States. Limitations of cost,
scale, or lack of an extensive record
of demonstrated performance may
preclude some of these innovations
from translating to the municipal
market at present, but the burgeoning demand for water resources will
increasingly necessitate the treatment
of lower-quality, higher-salinity supplies for municipal, agricultural, or
other industrial use. Thus, the institutional desalination knowledge
being cultivated in the unconventional O&G market may eventually
be a significant benefit to the municipal water treatment industry.
Industry cross-collaboration is an
integral component of this knowledge transfer. Organizations such as
AWWA are essential for facilitating
such collaboration, providing forums
for the exchange of ideas, including
both technical conferences and publications such as Journal AWWA.
However, because the characteristic
water supply treatment challenges
vary among different industries, it is
not sufficient to simply emulate the
desalination technologies and concepts that have proved successful for
produced-water applications. The
same outside-the-box thinking that
has served the unconventional O&G
sector can likewise help the municipal water treatment industry identify
its own customized solutions. There
are some critical questions to ask:
What is the cost of desalination
and concentrate management versus
o the cost of having an important project precluded by the
expense?
o the cost of having no other
viable wastewater disposal
options?
o the cost of having no water?
52

Where can industry and municipal desalination operations colocate for mutual benefit for
opermitting?
oinfrastructure?
o waste heat use?
o resource management and
recycling?
What freshwater applications in
various industries could reasonably
use concentrate?
In what context(s) does concentrate have more economic value than
less-saline supplies?
In what context(s) does concentrate have more functional value
than less-saline supplies by virtue of
its physical characteristics, including
o salt content?
odensity?
obuoyancy?
o freezing point?
oviscosity?
o specific heat of vaporization?
By proactively asking such questions and engaging with a wide range
of disparate industries, the municipal
water sector may effect uniquely customized advancements in desalination and salinity management, thus
spurring its own renaissance in
resource utilization at a time when
the need to leverage alternative supplies has never been greater.

AWWA manuals of practice.

Alspach is a past chair of the
AWWA Membrane Processes
Committee and is a 2014 recipient
of AWWAs Golden Spigot award.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Koplos, J., 2014. Hydraulic Fracturing

Overview: How, Where, and Its Role in
Oil and Gas. Journal AWWA, 106:11:38.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5942/
jawwa.2014.106.0153.

Brent Alspach
serves as a
principal
environmental
engineer
specializing in
water treatment
and reuse at ARCADIS in Carlsbad,
Calif.; brent.alspach@arcadis-us.
com. He joined ARCADIS in 1997.
Alpsach has bachelors and masters
degrees in civil and environmental
engineering from Cornell University
in New York. He is a recognized
authority on membrane processes,
having authored or co-authored
more than 100 publications on
membrane treatment, including the
USEPA Membrane Filtration
Guidance Manual and several

NOVEMBER 2014 | JOURNAL AWWA 106:11 | ALSPACH

2014 American Water Works Association

http://dx.doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2014.106.0154

REFERENCES
AWWA, 2013. Water and Hydraulic Fracturing.
American Water Works Association,
Denver.
Bond, R. & Veerapaneni, V., 2008. Zeroing in
on ZLD. Journal AWWA, 100:9:76.
Colorado School of Mines, 2009 (1st ed.).
Technical Assessment of Produced
Water Treatment Technologies. Colorado
School of Mines, Golden, Colo.
Cooley, H., & Donnelley, K., 2012. Hydraulic
Fracturing and Water Resources:
Separating the Frack From the Fiction.
Pacific Institute, Oakland, Calif.
EIA (Environmental Information
Administration), 2014. State Profiles and
Energy Estimates. EIA, Washington.
www.eia.gov/state/rankings/#/series/46
(accessed July 2014).
Frohlich, C., 2012. A Two-Year Survey
Comparing Earthquake Activity
and Injection Well Locations in the
Barnett Shale, Texas. Proceedings
of the National Academy of
Sciences, 109:35:13934.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1207728109.
International Energy Agency, 2013. World
Energy Outlook 2013. International
Energy Agency, Paris.

Produced Water Society, 2014. Produced Water

Facts. http://producedwatersociety.com/
index.php/produced_water_facts/
(accessed July 2014).
Texas Brine Co., 2014. For Weighting Up
Fresh Water or Field Salt Water.
www.texasbrine.com/tables/weighting
UpBrine.html (accessed July 2014).
US Census Bureau, 2013. Annual Estimates of
the Resident Population for the United
States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico:
April 1 2010 to July 1, 2013. 2013
Population Estimates.US Census Bureau,
Washington.

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