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The use of reverse osmosis (RO) for desalination holds great promise for addressing water scarcity issues in many parts of the world. However, membrane fouling is a significant impediment in this regard, as it reduces the quality and quantity of water produced, increases energy consumption, requires cleaning, and shortens membrane life. The use of granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption in conjunction with ultrafiltration (UF) as a pre-treatment ensures that high-quality seawater enters the desalination process free of contaminants that could harm the plant. This method increases the efficiency and longevity of the equipment, lowers maintenance costs, and produces high-quality desalinated water for a variety of applications. In this study, GAC was made from commercially available charcoal and used to remove organic compounds, heavy metals, and microbiological contaminants from seawater. A preliminary study was conducted to determine GAC's effectiveness in removing methylene blue (MB). The removal efficiency was found to be 78 and 99% at initial MB concentrations of 50 and 10 mg/L, respectively. The isotherm modeling confirms that the adsorption process follows the Langmuir model. In addition, the kinetic study demonstrated that MB adsorption on GAC follows the pseudo-second-order model. GAC filtration removed more than 99% of COD and significantly reduced metal concentrations such as Zn, Cu, and Cd. Bacteriological analysis of seawater treated with GAC revealed a significant reduction in total and fecal coliforms, as well as fecal streptococci, indicating the efficacy of the GAC/adsorption filtration system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of polymer flooding for enhanced oil recovery has resulted in the retrieval of an additional 10%-20% from the original oil in place (OOIP). The main objective of this study was to investigate the rheological behavior of terpolymer (PAM-ATBS-NVP) in polymer flooding for enhanced oil recovery. The effect of concentration, temperature, salinity/hardness, and nanoparticle type/concentration was assessed under different reservoir conditions. The results showed that, as the shear rate increased, the viscosity of the polymer decreased which reflected shear thinning behavior and when the polymer concentration increased, the viscosity of the polymer increased. The polymer also provided good thermal stability. Despite this terpolymer being designed to tolerate harsh condition of temperature and salinity/hardness, the viscosity of the polymer decreased with higher salinity/hardness. Using three types of nanoparticles (NPs), the viscosity of the polymer did not change for two NPs which were alumina NP and titanium NP while the viscosity of the silica NP-polymer mixture decreased with respect to the silica NP concentration. This difference in the behavior between NPs was due to the adsorption of the polymer molecules to the silica NP surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]