By Eliana Merhege, Mechanical Engineering Major,Mentor Allyson McGaughey. The oil and gas industry uses a lot of water that becomes highly polluted and cannot be rereleased into the environment because it would be harmful to ecosystems, and public health. The current methods for managing produced water are not sustainable, as they consist of injecting water underground for storage, which is only a temporary solution, and bring other problems with it. Membrane distillation, where a hydrophobic membrane creates an air gap between a warmer source stream, and a cooler distillate, facilitating the evaporation of the source stream and condensation of it into the distillate, is an improved method of treating wastewater. Membrane distillation is more effective at removing complex contaminants from highly contaminated water than traditional water desalination methods, but needs to be improved to become commercially viable. If these sustainable methods of produced water management are not developed, the current methods will become more dangerous: with only limited storage space underground, the risk of leakage of the water into local communities and surrounding areas increases tremendously, which would be detrimental to the environment, and public health. With the sizable presence of fracking in New Mexico, this issue is of particular importance to New Mexican communities, and it is important for New Mexican citizens to be informed about the issue of produced water management. Thus, this research aims to create an informational video to raise awareness surrounding the issues of produced water, and the research being conducted on new and improved ways to manage it.
