Innovative Technology for Produced Water Treatment
Conferences & Talks

• Meng Lean, Presenter
• Jeonggi Seo
• Norine Chang
• Ashutosh Kole
• Ben Hsieh
• Armin Volkel

20th Annual Produced Water Society Annual Seminar

20 January 2010 - 22 January 2010
Houston, Texas

description

This talk describes a two-step approach incorporating a front-end pre-conditioner and a back-end hydrodynamic separator to treat produced water without using any filtration barrier. The pre-conditioner may be tailored for the targeted use. For divalent metal precipitation, the pre-conditioning step may include lime softening and soda ash treatment to rapidly create precipitates for immediate downstream separation. For oil/water separation, the preconditioning step may include mixing at the designed shear rate to create an emulsion of the preferred drop size for separation. The hydrodynamic separation is an innovation that takes advantage of centrifugal force to create precise flow patterns that sweep neutrally buoyant suspensions to a position where force equilibrium results in focusing and the formation of a band which may be diverted to a waste stream at the end of the channel. This use of centrifugal force is not the same as in traditional hydrocyclones and centrifuges where particles of different density from the liquid is moved relative to the liquid using very high (1000s) relative centrifugal force (RCF). The RCF in our device is in single digits, and is the main reason for the low power requirement. Other salient features include: scalability, small foot print, continuous flow operation, filter-less, and modular construction. Sample results for treatment of raw produced water for divalent metal precipitation and separation, and oil/water separation of hydrocyclone overflow will be discussed in the talk.