Patent ID: 8343328

Claim:
A process of reducing the organic content of a brine stream comprising subjecting the brine stream to at least two purification treatments to form a purified brine; wherein the at least two purification treatments are selected from an electrochemical treatment, a chlorinolysis treatment, a chemical oxidation treatment, a carbon adsorption treatment, an extraction treatment, a biological treatment and a crystallizing treatment; wherein the organic content of the purified brine is sufficiently low to enable reuse of the purified brine; wherein the at least two purification treatments comprise at least one crystallizing treatment comprising: (1) providing an aqueous brine solution comprising one or more inorganic salts and one or more organic compounds; and (2) conducting at least one unit operation for removing organic compounds from the aqueous brine solution of step (1) to obtain a purified brine solution; wherein at least about 80 weight-percent of the one or more inorganic salts of the aqueous brine solution provided in step (1) is sodium chloride; wherein the at least one unit operation of step (2) comprises a first redissolution operation comprising: (a) crystallizing the sodium chloride present in the aqueous brine solution to form sodium chloride crystals and a first mother liquor; (b) separating the sodium chloride crystals formed in step (a) from the first mother liquor formed in step (a); (c) redissolving the separated sodium chloride crystals of step (b) in an aqueous solution having an organic compound concentration substantially less than the organic compound concentration in the aqueous brine solution provided in step (1) to obtain a first purified brine solution; and (d) crystallizing the sodium chloride present in the first mother liquor of step (b) to produce a first recycle salt stream that is fed back to step (a) and a first mother liquor purge stream; wherein the first mother liquor purge stream of step (d) has a reduced volume of organic-containing purge; and wherein the weight-ratio of the amount of organic compound to the amount of sodium chloride present in the first purified brine solution of step (c) is less than about one-tenth of the weight-ratio of the amount of organic compound to the amount of sodium chloride present in the aqueous brine solution provided in step (1).