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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Unraveling the ecological success of Iodidimonas in a bioreactor treating oil and gas produced water

Iodidimonas sp., a bacterium found in bioreactors treating oil and gas produced water as well as iodide-rich brines, has garnered attention for its unique ability to oxidize iodine. However, little is known about the metabolic capabilities that enable Iodidimonas sp. to thrive in certain unique ecological niches. In this study, we isolated, characterized, and sequenced three strains belonging to the Iodidimonas genus from the sludge of a membrane bioreactor used for produced water treatment. We investigated the genomic features of these isolates and compared them with the four publicly available isolate genomes from this genus, as well as a metagenome-assembled genome from the source bioreactor. Our Iodidimonas isolates had several genes associated with mitigating salinity, heavy metal, and organic compound stress, which likely help these bacteria to survive in produced water. Phenotyping tests revealed that while the isolates could utilize a wide variety of simple carbon substrates, they failed to degrade aliphatic or aromatic hydrocarbons, consistent with the lack of genes associated with common hydrocarbon degradation pathways in their genomes. We hypothesize that these microbes may lead a scavenging lifestyle in the bioreactor and similar iodide-rich brines. IMPORTANCE: Occupying a niche habitat and having few representative isolates, the genus Iodidimonas is a relatively understudied alphaproteobacterial group. Its ability to corrode pipes in iodine production facilities has economic implications, and its ability to generate potentially carcinogenic iodinated organic compounds during treatment of oil and gas produced water may cause environmental and health concerns with the recycling of treated water. Therefore, detailed characterization of the metabolic potential of the Iodidimonas isolates in this study both sheds light on their adaptation to the environmental conditions they inhabit and has environmental and economic significance.

Acharya, Shwetha M↗
DOE OSTI2024

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) 26r Detailed Produced Water Compositions (version 1.0)

A database of geochemical compositions of aqueous species in produced water reported to the PA DEP. Samples were collected between mid-2012 to early-2020. Data from publicly-available PA DEP 26r reports were scraped from pdf files and cumulated into tabular spreadsheet format for >1000 produced water streams from Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania. In addition to providing the original values, the NETL NEWTS team has reformatted the dataset to allow sample streams to be easily copied into OLI Studio and Geochemist WorkBench (GWB) software for modeling the geochemistry and the recovery of critical minerals, such as lithium, from these produced water streams. In addition, a version of the dataset has been included with predictions for some missing values in the original dataset using machine learning techniques within CoDaRT software, a public ML software developed by the Nation Energy Technology Laboratory. We have made the Input into CoDaRT and one example output from CoDaRT available in this dataset.

Aqueous Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2024

Produced water sharing: Improved economics and reduced community impact – A Pennsylvania case study

Here, hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction from unconventional reservoirs is water intensive. Between water sourced for fracturing purposes and water present in rock formations, operators often produce a greater volume of water than oil or gas. Historically, this surplus of produced water has mainly been disposed of via deep injection wells. Rising disposal costs, seasonally limited water availability, and concerns over induced seismicity have incentivized produced water recycling practices, where an operator uses produced water for hydraulic fracturing operations. The logistical challenges associated with produced water recycling have also encouraged operators to adopt ad-hoc water exchange practices, in which competing operators will exchange produced water for mutual cost savings. In this paper, we investigate the potential benefit from systematic produced water exchange among operators in Northeastern Pennsylvania. We leverage PARETO, a free and open-source modeling framework for produced water management optimization, to quantify the benefits of water exchange practices. In an example drawn from FracFocus data, we find that the adoption of systematic water sharing could improve produced water recycling rates from 49.2% to 99%, decreasing operating and trucking costs.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Producing Dollars from Produced Water: How we Get There and Why we Should

Recent studies have shown that produced water and drill cuttings from the development of unconventional shale in Appalachia has a significant source of valuable critical minerals, including lithium, putting Pennsylvania in a unique position to capitalize. This session presents how we capitalize on this opportunity to produce dollars from produced water, the opportunities, and the challenges.

critical minerals, lithium, rare earth elements↗
DOE OSTI2025

Permeate fluxes from desalination of brines and produced waters: A reactive transport modeling study

The increasing interest in the use of membrane systems to desalinate inland brackish water, agricultural drainage, and industrially produced wastewater demands improved means of predicting desalination system performance under variable feedwater compositions. The interaction among water flow, solute transport, and chemical composition in these systems impacts permeate flux evolution. Here, an established multicomponent reactive transport simulator that accounts for these coupled processes is applied to compute osmotic pressure and permeate fluxes in reverse osmosis (RO) systems. The model is first validated by predicting permeate fluxes for a set of benchtop crossflow experiments subject to a range of feed flow rates and compositions, under fouling and non-fouling conditions. Results compare favorably with measured data that show that solutions with similar total dissolved solids concentrations but different compositions result in different permeate fluxes. The model is then applied to predict permeate fluxes from the desalination of produced waters using a commercial spiral wound RO module. For NaCl-dominant brines, at total dissolved salt concentrations (TDS) below about 70 g/L, permeate fluxes are inversely proportional to water mole fraction as the latter is a reasonable approximation of water activity (i.e. ideal mixing). In the case of Ca–Cl-, Na–CO3- and Na–SO4-dominant brines below about 70 g/L TDS, this relationship does not hold as well and tends to overpredict osmotic pressure and thus underpredict permeate fluxes. However, the opposite becomes true at higher TDS values for typical produced waters. The scaling potential of these waters is also computed by allowing the precipitation of minerals above their saturation limit on the RO membrane. This work demonstrates how reactive transport models developed for the analysis of waters from geological systems can be extended to improve process design, optimization, and control in desalination systems from produced waters and beyond.

Molins, Sergi↗
DOE OSTI2024

Scale-Bridging Optimization Framework for Desalination Integrated Produced Water Networks

In this work, we develop a Pyomo-based non-linear optimization strategy that includes rigorous MVR models. The detailed desalination unit is integrated into the multiperiod produced water network problem using the trust region filter (TRF) method. TRF decomposes the integrated problem into a master problem consisting of the network variables and a simplified surrogate model for the detailed desalination unit. The surrogate is updated using zero and first-order corrections from the optimal solution of the detailed models at every iteration. This framework allows us to co-optimize the design of the desalination units and operating policy for the multiperiod network. A common design is ensured across all periods using global capacity constraints. We validate the solution obtained using the TRF method by solving the full integrated problem for small network instances and show our results on real case studies on produced water networks from the Permian and Appalachian basins. In this work, we describe our TRF formulation, give details on our implementation in Pyomo, and analyze the results obtained by solving the optimization problem using IPOPT. We also present a discussion on the computational efficiency and scaling using the TRF approach against a full-scale integration of the rigorous models within the water network.

Naik, Sakshi↗
DOE OSTI2026

Scaling dynamics in low-salt-rejection reverse osmosis for high-salinity produced water desalination: Mechanistic modeling and membrane autopsy

Membrane scaling remains a critical barrier to the reliable operation of desalination systems, particularly for hypersaline produced water (PW) treatment. This study fills the knowledge gap of autopsy-based model validation for PW desalination by elucidating scaling mechanisms in a Low-Salt-Rejection Reverse Osmosis (LSRRO) system through the integration of pilot-scale experimentation and complementary modeling approaches. A semi-empirical modeling framework was developed and applied to a multistage pilot LSRRO system equipped with nanofiltration and RO membranes treating high-salinity PW from the Permian Basin. Water quality analysis showed that total dissolved solids decreased from ~130,000 mg/L to ~1900 mg/L in the permeate, then further reduced to ~300 mg/L by a second-pass RO. Two different thermodynamic modeling approaches were evaluated: the first extends the LSRRO framework by incorporating system complexity and scaling phenomena, whereas the second method explicitly captures concentration polarization in localized supersaturation. Both methods illustrate the tendency for carbonate and sulfate scaling throughout the stages. Membrane autopsies revealed a silica-dominated deposit matrix, localized CaSO 4 at Stage 2, and minor barite/celestite despite their prominence in model predictions. Quantum-chemical calculations indicated silica scaling can be rationalized by favorable adsorption of H 4 SiO 4 on Fe-oxide surfaces (ΔG ≈ −44 kJ/mol), providing a kinetic pathway for interfacial inorganic polymerization even when bulk equilibrium predictions are conservative. Overall, the thermodynamic scaling modeling and membrane autopsy revealed heterogeneous, localized deposits with limited impact on LSRRO performance, while quantum analysis rationalized the thermodynamically unfavorable precipitation formation under bulk equilibrium, reconciling model–autopsy discrepancies. These insights support targeted pretreatment and silica-specific antiscalants to extend membrane lifetime and increase recovery, providing a transferable framework for hypersaline water desalination systems. The combined experimental–computational approach provides new mechanistic insight into scaling in hypersaline membrane systems and establishes a transferable framework for predicting and mitigating scaling in next-generation desalination technologies.

Low-salt-rejection reverse osmosis↗
DOE OSTI2025

Produced Water DNA Database (PW-DNA): Utilizing KBase to generate an environmental specific curated molecular database

The deep subsurface is estimated to host the majority of Earth’s microbial biomass yet remains one of the most challenging environments to access and study. One common approach to investigate these microbial communities is through the analysis of produced water from subsurface reservoirs, where researchers can assess water and gas chemistry along with molecular (DNA/RNA) sequence data. Advances in high-throughput sequencing have greatly expanded our understanding of these environments and their biotechnological potential. However, further progress requires large-scale, integrative meta-analyses across diverse datasets. To address this need, we developed the Produced Water-DNA (PW-DNA) Database, a curated, publicly available resource that consolidates microbial DNA/RNA sequences, geochemical data, and relevant metadata from in situ hydrocarbon environments such as coal beds, oil reservoirs, and natural gas systems. The PW-DNA database delivers three core benefits to the research community: (1) it improves data sharing by linking environmental microbial datasets with corresponding geochemical parameters, enabling more robust filtering and analysis; (2) it connects with complementary research databases to promote broader dissemination and interoperability; and (3) it supports technological innovation by serving as a resource for identifying microbial trends and exploring genetic potential. While individual studies have highlighted basin-specific microbial communities and functional redundancy in biogeochemical cycling, a comprehensive, system-wide perspective is needed to better understand connectivity and novelty across subsurface ecosystems. By designing the PW-DNA in the KBase platform, we provide a reproducible, visual framework for integrating large-scale genomic and geochemical data, enabling researchers to perform more informed analyses and experimental design. Ultimately, this resource enhances the ability to identify, characterize, and interpret microbial functions across diverse subsurface environments, thereby accelerating discovery in subsurface microbiology and biotechnology.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Co-treating flue gas desulfurized effluent and produced water enables novel waste management and recovery of critical minerals

Herein this study reports a novel approach of resource recovery from co-managing two geographically co-located and chemically complementary wastewaters using a pilot-scale treatment process. Designed to treat flue gas desulfurized (FGD) effluent from combustion powerplants and produced water (PW) from energy industries, the process consists of soda-ash softening, nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO). Recovered products are barite, calcite, and low-salinity water. Using field-collected waters, the results show that softening at pH 8.5 produces calcite (yield: 30 kg/m 3 treated water), a chemical used as SO ₂(g) scrubbers. NF treatment under an applied pressure of 3.5 MPa yields a permeate stream laden with monovalent ions (water recovery 60%) and a concentrate stream with a sulfate concentration 1.8 times of the feedwater concentration. Mixing the NF concentrate and PW at a volumetric ratio of 1.0 precipitates a high-density barite material (4.1 g/cm 3 , yield: ~7.5 kg/m 3 mixture) – a critical mineral commonly used as a weighting agent in drilling. The RO treatment recovers >64% water as the permeate, which can be readily used as cooling make-up water at the powerplants. The RO concentrate stream can be further processed in a thermal evaporative system for additional water recovery and brine production.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Estimating Lithium Fluxes from Produced Water: Marcellus Shale and Beyond

This talk summarizes the potential for critical minerals extraction from produced water and the current data constraints on making these evaluations. First, we present results from production simulations carried out using data from the Marcellus shale showing the lithium resource potential from this formation. Second, we broaden our estimations to show the critical mineral resource estimates from U.S. domestic shale operations. Lastly, we conclude with an overview of the NEWTS database and dashboard where we host the data used in our assessments.

Mackey, Justin↗
DOE OSTI2025

Characterization of Coal Seam Produced Water from the Appalachian Basin: Geochemistry, Microbiology, and Biocatalyst Development for Biological CO 2 Conversion

To enhance domestic energy repositories, it is necessary to develop carbon utilization technologies to repurpose unused carbon sources, and/or enhance the economic viability and carbon conversion efficiency of current technologies. To this end we have developed a biocatalyst, enriched from coal seam produced water, to convert gaseous and liquid C1 compounds (e.g. CO 2 , bicarbonate, formate, and/or methanol) into acetate, a C2 organic acid with a projected global market size of $\$$32.4 billion USD by 2030.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2025

Semi‐Continuous Ex Situ Carbon Dioxide Mineralization in Produced Water for Calcite Production

ABSTRACT The mineralization of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to stable carbonate products is a desirable process for carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS). However, improving the process economics through creative use of available reactants is necessary to develop a scalable mineralization process. This study details the development of a semi‐continuous CO 2 mineralization process that uses flue gas as a point CO 2 source, produced water (PW) as an alkaline source of Ca 2+ , and NaOH effluent (potentially sourced from integration with the chlor‐alkali process. Operating at a controlled pH allowed for both complete reaction of available Ca 2+ (100% carbonation potential or 9.9 g CO 2 .L –1 PW brine) and for reproducible control of the produced calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) product. A full factorial design of experiments was implemented to study the effects of reaction temperature, pH, and gaseous CO 2 concentration on the mineralization and CO 2 capture rates as well as product crystalline structure and morphology. A maximum CO 2 capture rate of 0.315 ± 0.007 kg.L –1 .d –1 was achieved at 25°C and 25% CO 2 . CO 2 gas to liquid phase mass transport is believed to be the rate limiting step. With improved reactor design and optimization, the proposed semi‐continuous mineralization process shows promise for scaling to a pilot scale CO 2 capture technology.

Bennett, Quinn [Institute for Sustainable Energy &↗
NASA NTRS1979

Process for purification of waste water produced by a Kraft process pulp and paper mill

The water from paper and pulp wastes obtained from a mill using the Kraft process is purified by precipitating lignins and lignin derivatives from the waste stream with quaternary ammonium compounds, removing other impurities by activated carbon produced from the cellulosic components of the water, and then separating the water from the precipitate and solids. The activated carbon also acts as an aid to the separation of the water and solids. If recovery of lignins is also desired, then the precipitate containing the lignins and quaternary ammonium compounds is dissolved in methanol. Upon acidification, the lignin is precipitated from the solution. The methanol and quaternary ammonium compound are recovered for reuse from the remainder.

Humphrey, M. F.↗