Membrane distillation (MD) is a promising desalination technology for the treatment of high salinity water. Here, we investigated the fouling characteristics of produced water obtained from hydraulic fracturing by implementing a carbon nanotube immobilized membrane (CNIM) via direct contact membrane distillation. The CNIM exhibited enhanced water vapor flux and antifouling characteristics compared to the pristine membrane. The normalized flux decline with the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane after 7 h of operation was found to be 18.2% more than the CNIM. The addition of 1-Hydroxy Ethylidene-1, 1-Diphosphonic acid (HEDP) antiscalant was found to be effective in reducing the membrane fouling. The salt deposition on the membrane surface was 77% less in the CNIM, which was further reduced with the addition of HEDP in the feed by up to 135.4% in comparison with the PTFE membrane. The presence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the membrane surface also facilitated the regenerability of the membrane. The results indicated that the CNIM regained 90.9% of its initial water flux after washing, whereas the unmodified PTFE only regained 81.1% of its initial flux after five days of operation.
Keywords: antiscalants; carbon nanotube; desalination; membrane distillation; membrane fouling; produced water.