How can we determine the amount of each heavy metals in produced water?
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Introduction During the extraction of oil and gas a large quantity of undesirable water and drilling waste is produced. Barite (BaSO4) is commonly used in water based drilling mud to control and regulate the hydrostatic pressure in the well. This material contains high levels of heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, chromium and others. The cuttings of the drilling process are typically discharged to the environment giving cause for concern to marine wildlife. This poster will discuss the analytical methods that can be used for determinations of heavy metals from drilling mud, discharges, produced water, marine sediments and water. A fingerprinting method using the trace metals of Barite will be presented that potentially can be used to monitor the fate and distribution of heavy metals from drilling discharges. Determination of Mercury, Arsenic, Selenium and Antimony in Produced Water and Seawater Mercury and the hydride forming elements (As, Se & Sb) occur at extremely low levels in natural water samples. To achieve these low detection limits continuous flow vapour generation coupled to atomic fluorescence spectrometry (CV-AFS) can be used (see Figure 1). Figure 1 Schematic flow diagram of PSA 10.025 Millennium Merlin