Usable water production from coal seam gas water with a combination of pore control fiber filtration and reverse osmosis

Coal seam gas (CSG) water, to be discharged, has been usually treated in reverse osmosis (RO) plants which require extensive and expensive pre-treatment. However, current low gas prices have been a great driver for relevant industries to seek for alternative cost-effective technologies in the aspect of its beneficial use and fit-for-purpose usable water production. In this paper, a combined system with a two-stage pore control fiber (PCF) filtration and a RO system was designed and tested for CSG water treatment. Also, a coagulation reactor was placed in front of the PCF to further enhance suspended solid removal. More than 99% of SS were removed through the PCF filtration while organic, total nitrogen and total phosphorous were mostly removed by the RO system. Especially along with a decrease in conductivity, the total dissolved solid derived from salts was mainly removed in the RO system. Having $OH^-$ undetected, $HCO_3{^-}$ was found to be a dominant compound and its removal efficiency was 97-98% after the RO treatment. And a Fe(III) type of Polytetsu, which was the first to be tested in this paper, was found to be a better option than a Al(III) type of Poly Aluminium Chloride due to its greater coagulation efficiency and applicability at a broader range of pH than the Al(III) type. In addition, there was no noticeable change in oxidation reduction potential, suggesting that an additional process is required to oxidize non-ionic organic carbons (detected as total organic carbon).