DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I in the reply filed on 29 July 2026 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
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Claims 1-3, 6-10, 13, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fudge et al (“Microbial Electrolysis Cells for Decentralised Wastewater Treatment: The Next Steps”) in view of Naraghi et al (“Produced Water Treatment with Simultaneous Bioenergy Production Using Novel Bioelectrochemical Systems”) and Heidrich et al (“Production of hydrogen from domestic wastewater in a pilot-scale microbial electrolysis cell”).
Fudge et al teach (see fig. 1, reproduced herein) a wastewater treatment method comprising:
flowing a wastewater stream to an anode side of a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC);
electrolyzing, by the MEC, hydrocarbons present in the wastewater to produce hydrogen ions at the anode side;
allowing, by a membrane separating the MEC into an anode side and a cathode side, the hydrogen ions and water to pass from the anode side to the cathode side;
combining, by the MEC, the hydrogen ions to form hydrogen gas at the cathode; and,
discharging treated effluent and hydrogen from the cathode side. Fudge et al fail to teach (1) the wastewater originating in a separator of a gas-oil separation plant and (2) oxidizing the hydrogen gas into water to produce electricity that is used to power the gas-oil separation plant.
Regarding (1), Naraghi et al teach (see abstract, Introduction section on pages 535-536) using a MEC treatment for “produced water”, which is described as wastewater originating from separators that separate water from oil and gas extracted from a natural reservoir.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have applied the “produced water” of Naraghi et al to the MEC process of Fudge et al because Naraghi et al teach that an MEC process was effective for recovery of hydrogen gas and efficient treatment of the “produced water” generated from oil-water separators from oil extraction wells.
Regarding (2), Heidrich et al teach (see abstract, paragraph between equations (2) and (3) on page 6983) that it was known to use the hydrogen gas produced at the cathode of a MEC that treated wastewater in a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity. The hydrogen fuel cell operated by oxidizing the hydrogen gas using air/oxygen gas separated by a membrane to produce electricity and water.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the hydrogen gas produced at the cathode of the MEC of Fudge et al in a hydrogen fuel cell for the generation of electricity as suggested by Heidrich et al since it was a known and typical use of the hydrogen gas.
Regarding claim 2, using the generated electricity suggested by Heidrich et al onsite of the gas-oil separation plant of Naraghi et al would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have reduced the energy demand of the plant.
Regarding claim 3, Naraghi et al teach (see section 2.2) using produced water obtained from a desalination unit (i.e. a “desalter” as claimed).
Regarding claim 6, as discussed by Naraghi et al, water is utilized for injection (“injection of additional water … to maintain hydraulic pressure”) into a wellbore formed in a subterranean formation (“hydrocarbon layer”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have recycled at least a portion of the treated water produced by Fudge et al to the wellbore to reduce the reliance on fresh water.
Regarding claim 7, Naraghi et al teach (see Table 1) that the TDS of the wastewater was 20,000 mg/L (for solutions of water, 1 mg/L ≈ 1 ppm).
Regarding claim 8, although Naraghi et al are silent with respect to the amount of oil present in the wastewater, it would have been within the ordinary level of skill in the art to conduct routine experimentation to determine a workable range of oil content of the desalinated water.
Regarding claim 9, Fudge et al teach (see fig. 1, reproduced above) a wastewater treatment method comprising:
providing a wastewater stream comprising water and hydrocarbons;
electrolyzing the hydrocarbons to produce protons and a treated wastewater;
combining the protons and electrons to produce hydrogen gas.
Fudge et al fail to teach (1) (a) the origin of the wastewater being from a separator of a gas-oil separation plant crude oil stream (b) to which the treated water is recycled or (2) generating electrical power for use in the gas-oil separation plant.
Regarding (1)(a), Naraghi et al teach (see abstract, Introduction section on pages 535-536) using a MEC treatment for “produced water”, which is described as wastewater originating from desalination separators (i.e. desalters) that separate water from oil and gas extracted from a natural reservoir.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have applied the “produced water” of Naraghi et al to the MEC process of Fudge et al because Naraghi et al teach that an MEC process was effective for recovery of hydrogen gas and efficient treatment of the “produced water” generated from water desalination separators from oil extraction wells.
Regarding (1)(b), recycling of a regenerated reactant is a well-known engineering expedient to reduce the reliance of a process on fresh ingredients. In particular, water is a known limited resource that should be treated for reuse wherever possible.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have recycled at least a portion of the treated wastewater to the gas-oil separation plant, such as the desalter of Naraghi et al to reduce the reliance of the desalter of fresh water.
Regarding (2), Heidrich et al teach (see abstract, paragraph between equations (2) and (3) on page 6983) that it was known to use the hydrogen gas produced at the cathode of a MEC that treated wastewater in a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity. The hydrogen fuel cell operated by oxidizing the hydrogen gas using air/oxygen gas separated by a membrane to produce electricity and water.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have utilized the hydrogen gas produced at the cathode of the MEC of Fudge et al in a hydrogen fuel cell for the generation of electricity as suggested by Heidrich et al since it was a known and typical use of the hydrogen gas.
Regarding claim 10, as discussed above with respect to claim 2, using the generated electricity suggested by Heidrich et al onsite of the gas-oil separation plant of Naraghi et al would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have reduced the energy demand of the plant.
Regarding claim 13, as discussed by Naraghi et al, water is utilized for injection (“injection of additional water … to maintain hydraulic pressure”) into a wellbore formed in a subterranean formation (“hydrocarbon layer”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have recycled at least a portion of the treated water produced by Fudge et al to the wellbore to reduce the reliance on fresh water.
Regarding claim 14, Naraghi et al teach (see Table 1) the wastewater to be treated comprising 200,000 mg/L (approximately 200,000 ppm TDS since 1 mg/L ≈ 1 ppm for solutions of water). Although Naraghi et al are silent with respect to the amount of oil present in the wastewater, it would have been within the ordinary level of skill in the art to conduct routine experimentation to determine a workable range of oil content of the desalinated water.
Claims 4 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fudge et al (“Microbial Electrolysis Cells for Decentralised Wastewater Treatment: The Next Steps”) in view of Naraghi et al (“Produced Water Treatment with Simultaneous Bioenergy Production Using Novel Bioelectrochemical Systems”) and Heidrich et al (“Production of hydrogen from domestic wastewater in a pilot-scale microbial electrolysis cell”), as applied to claims 2 and 10, respectively, above, and further in view of Mousa et al (“Membranes for Oil/Water Separation: A Review”).
Fudge et al, Naraghi et al, and Heidrich et al fail to teach flowing the treated wastewater through a membrane separator.
Mousa et al teach (see abstract, section 1 on page 1 and fig. 3) providing a contaminated wastewater stream from an oil separation process to a membrane separator for purification.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have applied an additional purification treatment, such as the membrane separator taught by Mousa et al, to the wastewater leaving the MEC of Fudge et al for the purpose of further reducing any residual contaminants still present in the wastewater.
Claims 5 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fudge et al (“Microbial Electrolysis Cells for Decentralised Wastewater Treatment: The Next Steps”) in view of Naraghi et al (“Produced Water Treatment with Simultaneous Bioenergy Production Using Novel Bioelectrochemical Systems”) and Heidrich et al (“Production of hydrogen from domestic wastewater in a pilot-scale microbial electrolysis cell”), as applied to claims 2 and 10, respectively, above, and further in view of Venkatesan et al (“Produced water desalination: An exploratory study”).
Fudge et al, Naraghi et al, and Heidrich et al fail to teach mixing the treated wastewater with seawater and sending the mixture to a water treatment plant.
Venkatesan et al teach (see abstract, section 1 the paragraph after Table 2) that both seawater and produced water (the same byproduct discussed by Naraghi et al) could be treated by desalination technologies to generate fresh potable water.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have provided the treated wastewater from the MEC of Fudge et al to an existing seawater desalination plant in order to process the treated wastewater into fresh potable water using existing infrastructure (the seawater desalination plant).
Conclusion
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/HARRY D WILKINS III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1794
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