Track: Waste Management
Abstract
During the extraction of crude oil from underground oil reservoir, around 3 to 10 barrels of water are generated for each barrel of oil which comes as a by-product of petroleum products that is known as produced water. Produced water is composed of toxic compounds which are known to cause irreversible damage to the environment. Treatment of produced water is necessary to enable its use in various industrial processes and even to meet regulations on toxic materials before discharging water into the environment. The goal of this article is to propose a method to treat and utilize the massive amount of produced water generated during oil extraction and to outline the means to achieve the proposed method. This paper also aims to develop, design and evaluate the possibility of treating produced water to bring down the toxicity level of the water such that it meets the cooling tower limit. In order to use produced water as make-up water, it is treated using sand filters, activated carbon filters, electrodialysis reversal and reverse osmosis units. This process facilitates treatment of about 1500m3/hr of produced water in 15 hours.