Open AccessTreatment of produced water mixed with polymer from petroleum production
Author(s) -
Chayonnat Thanamun,
Pichet Limsuwan,
Kreangkrai Maneeintr
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/268/1/012030
Subject(s) - produced water , polyacrylamide , turbidity , alum , wastewater , chemistry , pulp and paper industry , water treatment , petroleum , suspended solids , dissolution , polymer , aluminium sulfate , waste management , environmental science , flocculation , environmental engineering , geology , organic chemistry , engineering , oceanography , polymer chemistry
In the petroleum industry, polymer flooding is one of the main methods in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) that applies a water-soluble polymer such as partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) to increase oil production. It is added to the flooding water to improve the oil movement. During the process, water is produced as a by-product along with oil and gas production. Moreover, produced water with polymer is more difficult to treat than that from conventional water-flooding process because it is complex and highly contaminated wastewater. The proper technology is required to treat this kind of wastewater and reuse it for oil production. Furthermore, the small to fine particles in the produced are needed to be removed because these particles can plug the reservoir in the oilfield. One of the main treatment processes is to apply the coagulant to agglomerate the fine particles and remove them before injection the water into the reservoir. Therefore, the objective of this study is to treat the produced water mixed with HPAM from petroleum production by using coagulants like polyaluminium chloride (PAC) and to investigate the effect of parameters such as coagulant dosage and polymer concentration on the treatment of produced water. The results are compared the performance with the conventional coagulant, potassium aluminum sulfate (potassium alum). The operating parameters of this study are coagulant dosage ranging from 300 to 900 mg/L and HPAM concentrations from 500 to 2,000 mg/L. In addition, the turbidity, as well as total suspended solids (TSS) are also studied. The results indicated that with an increase in HPAM concentration, the TSS and turbidity increase gradually under the same conditions. The results show that with 900 mg/L of coagulants, TSS and turbidity can be removed up to 89% and 94% with PAC and 39% and 27% with potassium alum, respectively. PAC can provide higher performance over alum at the same conditions; thus, leading to the reduction in chemical consumption and cost. Consequently, this method can be applied to use in the wastewater treatment from oil production with polymer flooding before injecting this produced water back into the reservoir.