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Project No.: 0172.09.038.082 Page 1 of 4

Project Name: Shale Gas CBI?

Yes

No

TELEPHONE CALL RECORD

Incoming

Outgoing

Date: 9/28/2011 Time: 3:30 am

pm

Company Name: Siemens ERG Staff Name: Sarah Hays

Contact Name: Jerry Alexander Contact Phone Number: 818-516-1281

General Subject: Siemens Reverse Osmosis Technology

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ACTION TAKEN

On September 26, 2011 at 4:00pm, I contacted Siemens (866-926-8420) and spoke with a man from the “highpurity water systems” department who said he was not the correct person to speak with, but who directed me to 

Frank Witzel in the produced water (oil and gas operations) department (724-772-6542).

On September 26, 2011 at 4:05pm, I contacted Frank Witzel (724-772-6542) and he told me he was not the 

correct person to talk to about technical information. He provided me the names of two people who would be 

able to help with more technical information about reverse osmosis, and is going to call back in 5 minutes to 

give me phone numbers for each of these people:

Ruediger Knauf : 011-65-6510-5950; (cell) 011-65-9235-0608

Thomas Schultz (Marketing): 262-521-8483; (cell) 262-617-9591

On September 27, 2011 at 3:30pm, I contacted Thomas Schultz (262-521-8483) and talked about general 

topics for Siemen’s RO technology options. He also gave me contact information for Jerry Alexander 

(818-516-1281), who is more of a water treatment expert, specifically about TDS removal. The following 

is information that Thomas was able to provide me:

Disposal options for oil and gas wastewaters that Thomas spoke about were:

1. Reinjection back into the same formation. Need to ensure that suspended solids and free oil are out of 

the water so that the formation doesn’t get plugged when water is reinjected. Also need to remove 

barium and sulfate so that scaling doesn’t occur (reinjection doesn’t require RO).

2. Make steam and inject steam into the ground for enhanced recovery (used with heavy oils) –

pretreatment required may be chemical precipitation and softening (deionization).

3. Reuse

4. Disposal

Thomas then began talking specifically about RO treatment.

Pretreatment:

Options before RO treatment can consist of the following: oil/water separation, microfiltration, and media 

filtration (depends on raw water quality).

Shale Gas Applications: 

For produced water reuse at another well the operator is hydraulically fracturing, pretreatment is needed at a 

level which is up to the reservoir engineer on site. Suspended solids, free oils, and ions (such as Barium and 

Sulfate) need to be removed so that the formation doesn’t get plugged and scaling doesn’t occur. When surface 

discharging wastewater, RO may be used, depending on TDS levels. RO is capable of removing TDS up to 

approximately 30,000 ppm (seawater), but when TDS is higher than 30,000 ppm, RO becomes less efficient. 
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RO will still remove TDS in these instances, but the recovery efficiency decreases. In many cases, RO will be 

used in combination with thermal evaporation or membrane distillation to concentrate the remaining TDS, 

however, these thermal treatment options are very expensive and are not used often (except in Canada and the 

Middle East with heavy oils). Thomas did not provide details about how RO would be used in combination with 

these other processes. Thomas thought that shale gas might eventually get to the point where they would need to 

use thermal technologies to remove pollutants enough to meet regulations.

Membrane Fouling:

Thomas commented that membrane fouling can be caused by hardness, silica, and residual organics (TOC) 

found in the wastewater. Membrane cleaning can be done using citric acid and the frequency is based on the 

head loss measurement, and thus varies by application. The head loss measurement is a measurement taken by

operators to determine the head loss (pressure drop) across the RO membrane, and thus determine whether the 

membrane needs cleaned. Main concerns for RO membranes are organics and free oils because the main goal of 

the membranes is to remove TDS, so these other constituents foul and deteriorate membranes.

RO units are typically run as continuous units, but can be run in a batch cycle. The important limitation to batch 

cycles is that the membranes must be kept wet.

Energy Use:

The main energy usage is just a pump used to maintain the correct osmotic pressure. Thomas did not know 

specific energy usage data/values.

Siemens offers mobile (on trailers, available to customers for any timeframe – rentals can be anywhere from 1 

week to multiple years) and permanent units. 

Waste Streams:

The waste streams generated by RO units depend on the specific influent water quality. If a concentrated solid 

brine stream is the desired waste output, crystallizers are sometimes used after RO treatment, however 

crystallization technology is very expensive.

Cost:

Thomas could not provide capital cost information, but commented that in the petroleum industry, each operator 

has their own design standards, which impact the price. A system that runs the same flow rate can have very 

different price depending on the operator and design standards (i.e., influent TDS, head loss requirement). It’s 

hard to give a $/gpm cost for RO units because of this (and because it depends on influent water quality). 

Operation and maintenance costs are more consistent across operators, but still depend on the cleaning 

frequency of the membranes and thus the influent water quality.

Thomas is going to email me brochures/documents that Siemens has about RO.

On September 28, 2011 at 12:30pm, I contacted Jerry Alexander (818-516-1281) and left a message.

On September 28, 2011 at 2:35pm, Jerry Alexander returned my call and left a message.

On September 28, 2011 at 3:10pm, I contacted Jerry Alexander (818-516-1281) and left a message.

On September 28, 2011 at 3:30pm, Jerry Alexander returned my call. Jerry provided me with the 

following information about Siemens’ RO treatment units.

Applications:

Siemens’s customers for RO units have been companies in both the (primarily) coalbed methane and 
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(minimally) shale gas industries (Locations: Alberta, Wyoming-PetroChemical, Marcellus). However, CBM

applications primarily use membrane treatments (RO) because waters are relatively free (or in low 

concentrations) of hydrocarbons. These CBM produced waters are well suited for RO treatment because they 

present minimal fouling problems to membranes. Ion exchange is also commonly used for CBM produced 

water. Treatment systems may consist of a filter followed by an RO unit OR an ion exchange (water softener) 

followed by an RO unit, as two examples.

Jerry hasn’t been involved in much TDS reduction work using RO units. He has seen dissolved air flotation

units used for shale gas flowback water.

A general rule of thumb is that for every 100 ppm TDS in the influent wastewater, one pound of osmotic 

pressure (pressure which must be exceeded in order for osmosis to occur) is required.

70000-80000ppm TDS ~ 0% recovery

50000 ppm TDS ~ 25% recovery

30000 ppm TDS ~ 60% recovery

Jerry says, as a general rule, RO is not a viable option for waters with TDS > 50,000 ppm.

Energy:

In order to calculate RO energy requirements, a simple conversion can be made from the necessary osmotic

pressure to energy consumption. Jerry provided the general energy cost of 10kW/1000 gallons. Many operators 

who run RO units also have energy recovery units to reduce their operating costs. These are commonly isobaric 

condensers (isobaric pressure exchangers) which can get up to 99% energy recovery. (A company out of San 

Leonardo, CA is the main provider of these; if we want more information, google search them.)

Membrane Fouling:

Membranes are typically used either as filtration or demineralization and there are different materials for each 

process. Thin-film composite materials and poly-amine materials are commonly used, but have problems with 

high chloride and ozone concentrations in waters. FilmTec and Hydronautics are two well-known providers of 

membranes, whose website lists various options for membrane materials, all of which are fairly similar 

(according to Jerry).

Jerry categorized “membrane fouling” into 4 groups:

1. Biological – requires high pH acid to clean (i.e.: hydrochloric acid)

2. Particulate

3. Scaling – requires low pH acid to clean (i.e.: citric acid)

4. Organic

Jerry said sometimes membranes can’t be recovered based on the amount of fouling that takes place. Chemical 

suppliers such as Nalco, Avisto, and PWT make specific chemical compounds to treat particular scale/fouling 

problems.

Capital Costs: 

RO systems can range anywhere from $1/gpd (relatively clean water) to $4/gpd (seawater). The higher cost 

correlates to higher operating pressures and different (more expensive) materials and construction. These costs 

are for the RO units only, and don’t include any pretreatment units (i.e.: ultrafiltration or membrane bioreactors) 

or energy recovery units that may also be part of the overall system.

O&M Costs:

Jerry could not come up with a range for O&M costs off the top of his head, but said that a google search for 

general seawater RO systems would give a good idea of the costs.
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Overall, Jerry said that RO is only applicable to waters that are relatively clean and have no hydrocarbons and 

minimal organics present. 

One place to look into for more information would be any studies done in Alberta, Canada with RO units for 

treating natural gas production wastewaters. Jerry said that membranes are hardly ever used there and that 

they’ve only been minimally successful because of the water quality. If we can find information about this, it 

would be interesting to see the reasons for failure.