A case study of Pb-scaling in a geothermal project in the West Netherlands Basin

This research was done in the framework of the RVO project on Development of a well impairment model for predicting geothermal clogging (DIMOPREC) .<br/>The importance of developing new energy sources with lower carbon emissions than conventional hydrocarbon based energy sources has been globally recognized (Andrews-Speed, 2016). Geothermal...

Predicting suspended ion exchange with PHREEQC

Natural organic matter is one of the key components to remove from source water during drinking water production. NOM not only negatively influences the colour, taste and smell of the water, it also decreases the effectiveness of common water treatment steps such as (membrane) filtration and UV desinfectation. A big fraction of natural organic...

High silica concentration in RO concentrate

Silica scaling is one of the major scaling challenges in Reverse Osmosis (RO). The safe operation practice is to keep the silica concentration below 150 mg/L in RO concentrate. This study addresses the effects of divalent cations such as calcium and magnesium on silica scaling in a seawater RO installation used as a pretreatment to Eutectic...

Physicochemical model for simulating the chemical processes during the crystallization of minerals from spent ion exchange regenerant

Traditionally, industrial processes produce wastes that, even though often containing useful materials, are discarded, contributing to environmental pollution and depletion of natural resources. An example of such wastes are brines, flows of concentrated salts, produced in water treatment processes, which are now routinely discharged into...

The behaviour of heavy metals and nutrients from stormwater in the Bluebloqs Biofilter in Spangen, Rotterdam: A field study

Climate change, population growth and urbanisation contribute to an increasing demand for freshwater resources. In order to face this challenge, stormwater harvesting for aquifer storage and recovery has gained interest over the past decades. However, pollutants from various surfaces are transported with the runoff, posing a threat for receiving...

Fluoride removal from water by Ca-Al-CO₃ layered double hydroxides and simultaneous acidification

Millions of people worldwide are exposed to excessive concentrations of fluoride (F⁻) from groundwater sources. Ca-Al-CO₃ layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have shown promising defluoridation efficiency; however, defluoridation by Ca-Al-CO₃ LDHs is highly pH sensitive. This study showed that simultaneous...

Reactive transport modelling of push-pull tests: A versatile approach to quantify aquifer reactivity

Push-pull tests (PPTs) were evaluated with 1-D radially axisymmetric multi-component geochemical reactive transport modelling (RTM) to assess aquifer reactivity controlling groundwater quality. Nutrient fate and redox processes were investigated in an Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) system, in which oxic tile drainage water (TDW; nitrate ...

PFAS removal from leachate water using electrocoagulation

This thesis aimed to elucidate the effects of dissolved organic matter on the applicability of electrocoagulation (EC) with iron electrodes for per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) removal from landfill leachate. The research methodology consisted of an experimental and a computational part. Galvanostatic EC experiments were...

Assessing adsorption of heavy metals from urban stormwater runoff in the Bluebloqs biofiltration system

Pressure on fresh water resources has led to water scarcity and increasing demand for alternative water resources, such as rainwater. Nevertheless, heavy metal contamination is a limiting factor for re-use of urban stormwater. This research focusses on the adsorption of heavy metal contaminants by biofiltration systems, specifically on the...

Phosphate Removal from Wastewater by Mineral Wool Filters

According to the United Nations, eutrophication is the most prevalent water quality problem. Developing countries especially are struggling to manage the increasing volume of untreated wastewater. A preliminary study of a Dutch-Indian partnership, developing universal watermanagement (LOTUSHR), has shown some indication of ortho-phosphate...

Study of surface complexation modeling on a novel hybrid enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method; smart-water assisted foam-flooding

This contribution focuses on surface complexes in the calcite-brine-surfactant system. This is relevant for the recovery of oil when using a new hybrid enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, which combines smart-water (i.e., ionically modified brine) and foam-flooding (SWAF) of light oil with dissolved carbon dioxide (CO₂) at high...

Impact of Microheterogeneity on Upscaling Reactive Transport in Geothermal Energy

Reaction rates for different minerals are usually measured in ideal conditions in batch experiments, where the impact of pore morphology and hydrodynamics have been fully neglected. Such reaction rates are used at continuum-scale (Darcy-scale) models without the impact of pore structure on upscaled reaction rates under flow conditions. Therefore...

Plant wide chemical water stability modelling with PHREEQC for drinking water treatment

In practice, drinking water technologists use simplified calculation methods for aquatic chemistry calculations. Recently, the database stimela.dat is developed especially for aquatic chemistry for drinking water treatment processes. The database is used in PHREEQC, the standard in geohydrology for calculating chemical equilibria in groundwater....

Calcite dissolution behaviour during low salinity water flooding in carbonate rock

Low salinity water flooding (LSF) has been proved to be a promising enhanced oil recovery method for sandstone reservoirs. The efficiency of LSF in carbonate reservoirs has not been proven completely yet, because there are still uncertainties about the LSF recovery mechanism in carbonate. From experimental studies, it was shown that wettability...

Lattice Boltzmann based multicomponent reactive transport model coupled with geochemical solver for scale simulations

A Lattice Boltzmann (LB) based reactive transport model intended to capture reactions and solid phase changes occurring at the pore scale is presented. The proposed approach uses LB method to compute multi component mass transport. The LB multi-component transport model is then coupled with the well-established geochemical reaction code PHREEQC...

Simulation of Geochemical Processes during Low Salinity Water Flooding by Coupling Multiphase Buckley-Leverett Flow to the Geochemical Package PHREEQC

Simulations carried out for low salinity water flooding often do not include geochemical processes. Salt concentration, and thus the salinity, is modelled as a water tracer that does not react with the reservoir formation. The goal of this MSc thesis is to improve the understanding of the influence of geochemical processes on the mixing of...

High silica concentration in RO concentrate and Magnesiumsilica polymers formation

Scaling is a major barrier in increasing recovery of RO installations. One of the major unresolved scaling problems in RO is silica scaling. Depending on pH and temperature, the safe operation practice to prevent silica scaling is to keep silica concentration below 150 [mg/l] in the concentrate. In this study, it was investigated whether it is...