Treatment and Recovery of High-Strength Wastewater Using an Integrated Electrocoagulation and Membrane Distillation Process**

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High-strength wastewater (HSW) generated from different sources in oil and gas industries poses a great challenge for treatment in conventional wastewater treatment facilities. Elevated levels of suspended solids, dissolved solids, oils and grease, salinity are some common characteristic features of such HSW. Extraction of gas from unconventional natural gas resources requires the management of large amounts of wastewater that return to the surface, after gas extraction, as flowback or produced water. To limit the discharge of different contaminants to the environment, HSW must be subjected to increasingly intense treatment processes to achieve optimal discharge or reuse standards.**Application of electrocoagulation (EC) has the potential for pre-treatment of HSW due to its simple, reliable and cost-effectiveness. EC is associated with the anodic dissolution of a sacrificial metal electrode to generate in situ coagulants. The nascent metal ions are very efficient coagulants and quickly form large flocs, which in turn can physically adsorb suspended solids, colloidal particles and chemically adsorb pollutants from HSW. Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging technology to produce fresh water by desalination or reusable water from pre-treated wastewater. MD, a thermally driven process, allows water vapor to pass through a membrane and unlike reverse osmosis is not pressure driven. MD operates at much lower temperatures compared to other thermal processes and potentially can use low-grade waste heat and solar or geothermal energy as an energy source. Integration of EC with MD can formulate a sustainable water recovery process for HSW in the oil and gas industries.**The outcomes of this project will significantly add value for the company, Kleinfelder Canada Inc., and Canada in general. In effect, this project aims to develop practical solutions for the recovery and reuse of HSW and reduce withdrawal of freshwaters from different sources. The proposed integrated EC-MD system is expected to recover large fraction of the wastewater for reuse.******