TY - THES

T1 - Treatment of Produced Water Containing Back-produced EOR Fluids

AU - Kovacs, Daniel

N1 - embargoed until 08-11-2024

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - Previous experiments (laboratory, pilot plant) have shown that back-produced polymer can negatively influence the water treatment process. Within the scope of this diploma thesis, a pilot plant was used to investigate the entire water treatment chain consisting of three-phaseseparation, micro bubble flotation, and deep bed filtration with regard to efficient de-oiling and solids separation. Throughout the trials, more than 1300 samples were collected along the treatment chain. The produced water samples were taken under actual field conditions. Characteristics of the inlet feed were varied by selecting specific production wells tied into the pilot plant. The aim was the assessment of the limitations of the tested deep bed filters. For this reason, a comprehensive evaluation matrix concerning economic, and technical factors was developed. The success criteria of the project was the pre-qualification of a filter system, which could reduce an oil in water concentration of 50 ppm down to 5 ppm in the presence of back-produced polymer. The results have shown, that each of the filter systems showed some positive characteristics depending on the required application (bulk oil removal, polishing, etc.). However, in the presence of higher viscous water containing polymer, a remarkable loss of performance has been witnessed in conventional filter technologies. The capability of treating polymer water was directly related to the physical properties of the filter media. As a potential suitable filtration technology, the multimedia filter is proposed for long term tests and will be further investigated in the trials of 2019.

AB - Previous experiments (laboratory, pilot plant) have shown that back-produced polymer can negatively influence the water treatment process. Within the scope of this diploma thesis, a pilot plant was used to investigate the entire water treatment chain consisting of three-phaseseparation, micro bubble flotation, and deep bed filtration with regard to efficient de-oiling and solids separation. Throughout the trials, more than 1300 samples were collected along the treatment chain. The produced water samples were taken under actual field conditions. Characteristics of the inlet feed were varied by selecting specific production wells tied into the pilot plant. The aim was the assessment of the limitations of the tested deep bed filters. For this reason, a comprehensive evaluation matrix concerning economic, and technical factors was developed. The success criteria of the project was the pre-qualification of a filter system, which could reduce an oil in water concentration of 50 ppm down to 5 ppm in the presence of back-produced polymer. The results have shown, that each of the filter systems showed some positive characteristics depending on the required application (bulk oil removal, polishing, etc.). However, in the presence of higher viscous water containing polymer, a remarkable loss of performance has been witnessed in conventional filter technologies. The capability of treating polymer water was directly related to the physical properties of the filter media. As a potential suitable filtration technology, the multimedia filter is proposed for long term tests and will be further investigated in the trials of 2019.

KW - EOR

KW - HPAM

KW - rück-produziertes Polymer

KW - Wasseraufbereitung

KW - Tiefenfiltration

KW - EOR

KW - HPAM

KW - back-produced Polymer

KW - Deep Bed Filter

KW - produced water treatment

M3 - Master's Thesis

ER -