IWC-12-54

Field operation results for treatment 

of Frac Water with Aquatech’s MoVapTM, 

a mobile industrial distillation 

CHUCK J. KOZORA & ROBERT BEALKO 

Aquatech International Corporation, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania 

KEY WORDS: Oil & Gas, Marcellus Shale, Utica Shale, unconventional gas, wellhead, flowback water, produced 

water, dewasted, wastewater, distilled water, brine water, wastewater minimization, recycle & reuse, Aquatech, 

Aquatech International Corporation, Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection, DEP, Total Dissolved 

Solids, TDS, evaporator, distiller, mobile, environmental impact, hydro fracturing, hydraulic stimulation 

ABSTRACT: Paper highlights background, importance of, and impact resulting from the 24/7 30-day field operation 

results for a water treatment rig named MoVap, essentially a mobile industrial distiller, which operated in 

Masontown, a town within the Marcellus Shale play and located in Southwest Pennsylvania. 

Marcellus & Utica Water Management Challenges 

Historically, the primary choice for handling much of the 

waste water also referred to as flowback and produced 

water, generated during drilling operations was to 

transport the water volumes to nearby deep injection 

wells for disposal. For example, Table 1 shows the 

approximate wastewater disposal volumes for the 

states of California, New Mexico, and Texas. As these 

states suggest, the availability of nearby disposal wells 

assured disposal with relative ease for the generated 

wastewater. Their availability and abundance made 

them the option of choice for management of the waste 

water. 

Table 1: Wastewater Disposal Activity (Reference #1) 

State Permitted 

Disposal Wells 

BBL/Yr 

Injected 

California 25,000 1.8 billion 

New Mexico 903 190 million 

Texas 11,988 2.2 billion 

However, local availability of deep injection wells is not 

an option for many developing shale plays. Local 

conditions can stress the need for alternative waste 

water management as the volumes of waste water 

grows. Specifically, the historical approach of using 

injection wells for disposal of the waste water is not 

always the ideal choice or the most economical. Some 

newer plays such as Marcellus and Utica have 

geological, regulatory, etc. factors effecting the choices 

and economics and are outlined in Table 2. 

Table 2: Quantity and distance of Deep Injection Wells 

State No. of 

Wells 

Relative 

distance 

Relative Cost 

(transport + 

dispose) 

Pennsylvania 7 Short Low 

West Virginia 70 Moderate 

to long Moderate 

New York 5 Moderate 

to long Unknown 

Ohio 177 Long High 

The Marcellus and Utica plays span across much of the 

states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and some 

parts of New York. The play’s regional location yields a 

different wastewater management situation than 

historically applied in states such as California, New 

Mexico, and Texas. With few local deep injection wells, 

the distance traveled to reach them imposes both an 

economic burden and an environmental impact from 

transportation. 

For states such as Pennsylvania, regulations and lack 

of a high number of local deep injection wells have 

driven the need for improved water management via 

enhanced water treatment located at or near the drilling 

operation. The market requires waste water treated 

locally and to a clean state for reuse as well as 

environmentally acceptable disposal. To assure the 

treatment is always local to the operation, the 

technology should have a high degree of mobility. 
Regulations effect alternative disposal options for 

Marcellus & Utica Shale Plays 

Disposal alternatives to deep injection wells are 

affected by the local regulations. Pennsylvania 

regulations were approved in August 2010 and become 

effective January 2011, that imposed the criteria that 

Shale gas waste water for disposal must have, among 

other criteria, a TDS equal or less than 500 ppm. This 

level is set to protect the waterways and the aquatic life 

that they contain. Marcellus and Utica well wastewater 

will typically have TDS levels ranging from 40,000 to 

100,000 for flow back and 200,000 to 300,000 ppm for 

production brine for operations involving horizontal 

fracturing and produced water. The regulation requires 

that waste water for disposal, other than via deep well 

injection, will require some form of treatment to meet 

the regulation. 

As a result, surface discharge directly into streams and 

surface discharge indirectly via Publically Owned 

Treatment Works (POTWs) were asked to not accept 

this material by the PA DEP unless the appropriate 

treatment technology is employed to yield water that 

meets the chemistry criteria. 

The impact of regulations, the lack of local disposal 

wells, the cost of disposal for non-local disposal wells, 

and the lack of long-term sustainability of using the 

wells suggest that another approach to wastewater 

management much be used. That approach is recycle 

& reuse of the waste water. 

Numerous methods of reuse are available and most 

include waste water treatment. As a recent hotbed of 

such activity for the Marcellus and Utica shale plays, 

these reuse methods were previously highlighted in a 

2010 paper for the IWC (reference #2). In brief, these 

methods included blending water, use of brine-tolerant 

chemicals, and a wide range of water treatments most 

of which were applied at central treatment facilities. For 

providing a sustainable approach that holistically 

addresses all the water management challenges, 

including production, regulatory, environmental, and 

economic, the implementation of treatment by a mobile 

industrial distillation proves beneficial. 

Mobile distillation technology extends waste water 

treatment benefits (Reference 3)

Water management is a critical component to the ability 

to continue drilling into the natural resources available 

in Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. Wastewater 

treatment and recycle/reuse issues not only impacts 

the ability to continue drilling due to environmental and 

corporate social responsibility challenges but can also 

impact production achieved during the well 

development. 

A distillation system advances the waste water 

treatment to distillate-quality levels for water reuse as 

well as disposal which is compliant with local 

regulations. Essentially, the water is cleaned of 

dissolved solids (TDS) such as barium, strontium, 

sodium, chlorides, etc. Regarding regulations for the 

state of Pennsylvania, the PA DEP has dewasted the 

distillate which improves storage and logistical 

management of the water for the Oil & Gas operators. 

As further enhancement for local water management, 

the distillation system is incorporated onto a trailer with 

wheels to maximize its mobility thereby enabling the 

treatment to be brought to or near the well pad of the 

Oil & Gas operator. This relocation of the treatment 

significantly reduces trucking requirements for the 

waste water and reduces expenses in the process. 

One example of this technology is the MoVapTM unit 

produced and offered by Aquatech. This mobile unit 

can process variable flowback wastewater and return 

high quality distillate for reuse. The mobility assures 

that the wastewater processing occurs locally and 

maximizes cost savings. Table 3 listed below provides 

a visual representation of the system. 

Table 3: An example of distillation system, Aquatech 

MoVapTM 

The MoVapTM unit uses mechanical vapor 

recompression to supply the energy required to boil 

feedwater. The feedwater enters and is preheated by 

exchanging heat with distillate and concentrated brine 

discharging from the unit. The hot deaerated feedwater 

flows to the evaporator hotwell and enters the 

recirculation loop. MoVap® employs SPRAY-FILM® 

evaporation technology to concentrate the feedwater 

and produce high quality distillate. 

Mobile Industrial Distillation Process 

In the summer of 2011, the mobile industrial distillation 

unit was placed onto the Appalachian Water Services 

(AWS) facility located in Masontown, a town based in 

Southwestern Pennsylvania and within the Marcellus 

Shale play. The AWS facility serves the oil & gas 

industry by treating shale gas waste water for filtration, 

i.e. totals suspended solids (TSS) removal as well as 

some chemical precipitation, but it does not treat to 

remove total dissolved solids (TDS). The mobile 

industrial distillation unit was placed at the facility to 
address this component of treatment. The water output 

from the facility served as the input feed water to the 

treatment process offered by the distillation. This 

process flow is outlined in Table 4. As depicted, this 

treatment process was utilized for a continuous 24/7 

operation over a 30 day time period. 

The feed water to the unit is first conditioned for 

appropriate pH and with an anti-foaming agent and an 

anti-scalant agent. This step assures optimum 

performance and minimal maintenance. The 

conditioned water then enters the unit for the 

evaporation / condensation step, i.e. recirculation loop, 

as described above. Recirculation continues until the 

concentrate reaches approximately 24%. Thus, output 

and yield are a function of feed water TDS level as 

outlined in Table 5. At his point, two outputs are 

produced: (1) a very clean water of distillate quality and 

(2) a lower volume 24% liquid concentrate. As outlined 

in Table 5, the yield of distillate varies directly with the 

feed TDS and typically ranged from 50 – 83%. 

Table 4: Process flow diagram of the mobile industrial 

distillation process 

Table 5: Output Yields as function of Feed Water Total 

Dissolved Solids (TDS)

Brine 

Feed

Feed 

TDS

Distillate 

Flow

24% Conc. 

Flow

Distillate 

Yield

gpm ppm gpm gpm volume %

30.0 40,000 25 5.0 83% 

33.3 60,000 25 8.3 75% 

37.5 80,000 25 12.5 67% 

42.8 100,000 25 17.8 58% 

50.0 120,000 25 25.0 50% 

Mobile Industrial Distillation Performance 

The quality of the distillate produced by the industrial 

distillation was consistently high with TDS typically 

below 200 ppm and this performance was observed for 

the entire length of the 30 day operation. A sample 

result is listed in Table 6 with a TDS of 70 ppm. This 

water could be then be classified as dewasted and 

stored or beneficially reused for additional hydro 

fracing, beneficially used by other industries such as 

power generation, or disposed by a number of 

avenues. 

The composition of the reduced volume liquid 

concentrate is listed in Table 8. This material would be 

disposed of via a deep injection well, sent for further 

treatment via a crystallizer technology from which more 

high quality distillate would be generated, or, due to it 

higher specific gravity, be used as a completions fluid. 

Table 6: Treatment Results for Distillate Output

Water Analysis 

Parameter 

Inlet to 

MoVap 

Distillate 

quality 

Total Dissolved 

Solids, ppm 64,100 70 

Sodium (ppm) 17,101 <0.5 

Chlorides 30,870 <28 

Barium 60.2 <0.5 

Calcium 1849 <0.5 

Iron <0.5 <0.5 

Magnesium 5.52 <0.1 

Strontium 755 <0.1 

Sulfates 8 2 

Zinc 2.2 <0.1 

Table 7: PA DEP versus Typical Water Chemistry 

Achieved by Distillation 

Parameter PA DEP 

Chapter 95 

MoVapTM 

Treated Water 

Total Dissolved 

Solids, TDS (ppm) 500 <200 

Chlorides (ppm) 250 <100 

Table 8: Treatment Results for Concentrate Output

Water Analysis 

Parameter 

Results 

7/13/2011 

Results 

8/10/2011 

Total Dissolved 

Solids, TDS (ppm) 238,000 231,000 

Chlorides (ppm) 187,000 158,000 

Barium 180 1100 

Calcium 44 320 

Iron ND ND 

Magnesium 1.3 0.2 

Strontium 3500 3800 

Sulfates 23.8 ND 

Zinc < 1 ND 
Mobile Industrial Distillation Benefits 

A number of benefits are realized with the mobile 

treatment process, output of distillate-quality water, and 

waste minimization of concentrate: 

1. The mobility of the technology enables bringing the 

water treatment to the source thereby enabling a 

significant reduction in trucks and their resulting 

costs. 

2. As of early 2012, for the state of Pennsylvania, 

distillate quality water is now dewasted by the PA 

DEP. The dewasted classification permits not only 

increased flexibility for disposal options but also 

increased water storage and logistical options for 

beneficial reuse by O&G operators. 

3. With the distillate dewasted, the level of risk both 

preserved and real, in handling the water has been 

reduced. Water that meets Pennsylvania and West 

Virginia DEP regulations should be highlighted as a 

positive attribute in waste water management and 

operations in general. It impresses upon the local 

communities that corporate responsibility for the 

environment and local neighborhood is a priority. 

4. The volume of wastewater is reduced by 50-83% 

which equally reduces the volume of required 

transportation (i.e. trucks) to an off-site treatment 

facility or to a deep injection well. As ~200 trucks 

are required to transport one million gallons of 

wastewater, the reduced truck traffic will also 

reduce carbon footprint, reduce road surface 

damage, and reduce dust and noise for the local 

community. All these effects are further favorable 

changes on their environmental effect. 

5. The volume of distillate is increased by 50-83% 

which maximizes the water for recycle and reuse. 

This dual benefit reduces costs for trucking and 

disposal, as well as for purchasing fresh water. An 

evaluation of overall water management can 

highlight the level of economic savings that can be 

achieved by incorporating this approach into 

operations. 

6. The distillate-quality stream produced from the 

distillation process has a Total Dissolved Solids 

(TDS) of less than 200 ppm which corresponds to 

an equivalent low level of components that can 

precipitate out of solution such as Barium, 

Strontium, Iron, and Sulfate. The near-absence of 

potential precipitation translates to the near 

absence of potential scaling down-hole on the 

fractures created in the rock. Without scaling, the 

openings of the fractures are maintained and allow 

the maximum yield of natural gas to be released 

from the shale. 

Conclusion 

The treatment process, which utilizes industrial 

distillation, produces high quality water while also 

minimizing the volume of waste water. As a result a 

number of benefits are realized for O&G industry, 

environment, and local communities.

References and Acknowledgements 

1. Web site of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Marcellus Home page, 

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/new_forms/marcellus/marcellus.htm 

2. IWC paper #10-63, Water Management: Treatment of Frac Water at Wellhead, by Chuck Kozora, Aquatech 

International, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania 

3. Rob Chapados, Senior Process Engineer, Aquatech ICD for providing the MoVap technology 

Author Information 

Chuck Kozora is the Regional Business Development Manager for Aquatech International Corporation, based in 

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America. His focus and responsibility in this role is to address the 

flowback and produced water issues arising from the drilling and fracing of the Marcellus Shale play. His career 

experience includes over twenty-four years as a chemist of which eight years focused on water treatment from 

positions held at Sybron Chemicals, Calgon Carbon Corporation, and Aquatech. He holds an undergraduate 

degree in Chemistry (BS 1986, Penn State) and a graduate degree in Colloids, Polymers, and Surfaces (MS 1990, 

Carnegie Mellon). 

Rob Bealko joined Aquatech as field operations manager. He has more than 10 years of experience in water 

filtration systems, including oversight of a Marcellus Shale brine water treatment facility and as an environmental 

services consultant for major petroleum-producing companies. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Bethany 

College.