Shell's Prelude FLNG project in Australia will employ a unique polymer extraction technology to purify water that is generated as a byproduct.
The Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility off the coast of Western Australia is the largest offshore floating facility ever built in the world (488 meters long, 74 meters wide).
VWS MPP Systems, subsidiary of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, has been awarded the contract by Samsung to supply the Macro Porous Polymer Extraction (MPPE) water purification unit.
During the production of natural gas, formation and dehydration water is co-produced containing dissolved and dispersed aromatic, aliphatic and polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
The MPPE Technology is a fully automated, remote controlled method for removing dissolved and dispersed hydrocarbons from water with efficiencies of 99.9999% down to below ppb level by means of extraction in an MPP bed.
The Macro Porous Polymer act as carrier for nontoxic and biodegradable extraction medium that absorbs and extracts hydrocarbons from water.
The miniscule plastic spheres are capable of reducing contaminant concentrations in water by a factor of more than 1 million, which means that concentrations of thousands ppm can be lowered to below 1 ppb (parts per billion).
This is done in only one cycle. Aside from clean water for recycling or discharging, the water purification unit also yields almost 100% pure hydrocarbons suitable for reuse.
The MPPE system has been used as a solution to target zero harmful discharge by removing toxic dissolved and dispersed hydrocarbons.