Suitability of water treatment chemicals in the remediation of produced water: a data-driven approach

There exist numerous counts of research works on produced water. We got to know about them because they made it to publishing probably by indicating a positive or promising result. Contrarily, there exist a hundred times unpublished, unreported works on produced water; works rejected based on not yielding desirable results or not being innovative enough. We might have encountered undesirable results but to what depths and time have we committed to mining out intricate details. The world is thinking and demanding sustainability. Is it sustainable for the future of water treatment, the ease and pace at which we transition to the next chemical or treatment option? In this data-centred approach, three common chemicals, aluminium sulphate, ferrous ammonium sulphate and calcium chloride, were used to treat produced water. The collected data (both initial and final analysis) were inferentially analysed. The first statistical analysis was the testing of 2 hypotheses using the Analysis of Variance test. This was done to reveal to compare the dependence of produced water properties on two categorical variables (sample type and treatment chemicals). The second was the test for relevance: correlation and regression analyses. The laboratory experimental analysis revealed that aluminium sulphate was most suitable for the alteration of physical effluent characteristics; ferrous ammonium sulphate for salinity concerns and calcium chloride for a particular heavy metal’s stability. The overall effluent characteristics indicated a greater dependency on ‘sample type’ than ‘treatment chemicals’. Certain produced water properties relationships were highlighted and quantified for instance iron(II) and chloride ion concentrations were dependent on total solids and indicated a significance F of 0.01.