1. ResultsIntroduction
Extraction of oil and gas in Utah’s Uintah Basin results in large
quantities of wastewater, or produced water, with nutrients and residual
organic chemical that represent a significant resource for producing
energy-related and value added products. Produced water was obtained
from industries operating in Utah’s Uintah Basin. The goal of the
project was to demonstrate the production of biocrude and the
treatment of produced water using naturally occurring microalgae.
• Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactor (RABR) consisting of 23
polystyrene disks
• Suspended over raceway containing produced water and algae
grows as a biofilm
• Motor continuously rotates disks which are half submerged
Produced Water
• Within the Uintah Basin (defined as Uintah and Duchesne Counties
within Utah) approximately 93 million barrels of water were
produced in 2013
• Only 11% of the water was disposed of through evaporation with the
national average at 2%. The rest is reinjected into the subsurface
Reactor Water Treatment
Utah produced water lagoon (image: Marc Silver)
Bioenergy from Produced Water
Contact: Peterson.B1993@gmail.com
Jordan.Wanlass@gmail.com
Ben Peterson, Jordan Wanlass, Jay Barlow, Dr. Jason Quinn, and Dr. Ron Sims
Biocrude Production
Future Work
Rotating algal Biofilm Reactor (RABR)
utilizing polystyrene to cultivate algae
Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) Unit for
biocrude conversion
Biocrude oil produced from microalgae
cultivated on produced water
• Wet algal biomass is converted at
high temperature and high
pressure in a hydrothermal
liquefaction reaction (HTL)
• HTL operating conditions:
 Temperature: 325 °C
 Pressure: 14 MPa (2000 psi)
 Retention time: 60 min
• HTL produces four products:
 Biocrude (energy product)
 Gas (energy product)
 Aqueous (fertilizer product)
 Solids
• Biocrude chemical
composition and energy
content are comparable to
petroleum crude
• A yield of 35% ash free dry
weight was obtained in
laboratory HTL tests and 58%
of feedstock energy was
recovered in the biocrude
• Biocrude can be refined into
an array of drop-in renewable
fuels
BIOCRUDE
RENEWABLE DIESEL
RENEWABLE GASOLINE
Biocrude can be reined into different
renewable fuels
• A techno-economic and life-cycle
assessment of biofilm growth of
microalgae was conducted
• It demonstrated that integrating
microalgae cultivation with
wastewater treatment significantly
reduces environmental impact
• Additionally microalgae
productivity significantly affects
fuel selling price.
• A lower selling price increases
viability for biocrude to be
converted into renewable fuels to
compete with traditional fossil fuels
Polystyrene disk RABR for side by
side comparisons
• Incorporate additional row of disks
for side by side comparison
• Optimize the system according to
techno-economic and life-cycle
assessment by:
 Reducing rate of rotation to
decrease energy requirements
 Increasing the productivity of
the microalgae by adding more nutrients and/or other easily
metabolized organic carbon sources
• Produced wastewater was treated
by augmenting the waste with
LLC2, a cyanobacteria isolated
from the Logan Municipal
Treatment Lagoons.
• Objectives include
reducing COD of produced
wastewater by
culturing cyanobacteria (LLC2)
in heterotrophic conditions
• Along with testing for
heterotrophic growth, differences
between aerobic and anaerobic
conditions were tested for
significance
• A 45% reduction in COD
from untreated waste at
6600 mg/L was seen in
aerobic, non-autoclaved
samples augmented with
LLC2
• Only a 40% reduction in
COD was exhibited for
samples not augmented with
LLC2
• Aerobic conditions show
significant improvement
over
anaerobic conditions for the
treatment of produced
wastewater
• Testing the heterotrophic characteristic of LLC2 on a RABR,
namely "Night RABR”
Cyanobacteria (LLC2) cultured in
heterotrophic conditions to reduce COD of
produced water
1500
2500
3500
4500
5500
6500
7500
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
CHEMICALOXYGENDEMAND(COD)
TIME (DAYS)
Autoclaved Aerobic Autoclaved Anaerobic Cyano+Aerobic
Cyano+Anaerobic Cyano- Aerobic Cyano- Anaerobic
Characterization of Produced Wastewater
by Hach 8000 Protocol.