Purification of Produced Water by Solvents to Enhance Oil Recovery and Reuse Separated Droplets
Metadata
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MDPI
Materia
Produced water Purification of produced water Oil Petroleum Complex emulsions
Date
2025-02-07Referencia bibliográfica
Aljadiri, A.S.A.; Bailón-Moreno, R. Purification of Produced Water by Solvents to Enhance Oil Recovery and Reuse Separated Droplets. Appl. Sci. 2025, 15, 1700. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15041700
Abstract
In crude oil production, large volumes of produced water are generated as a
highly polluting waste byproduct. On average, at least two barrels of produced water
are generated for every barrel of oil. This water contains oil traces in stable and complex
emulsions. To purify it, a method is proposed based on breaking these emulsions using
solvents that induce the coalescence of oil droplets, facilitating their separation from the
water. The method has two main objectives: (1) To identify the characteristics a solvent
must have to effectively break oil emulsions according to the Hansen solubility parameter
(HSP) model. (2) To select, from 40 solvents of different chemical families, the most suitable
ones based on efficiency, low toxicity, industrial availability, and cost. The experimental
procedure included the following steps: (1) Contacting the solvent with produced water
containing 150 ppm of oil under agitation. (2) Allowing the mixture to rest until a layer of
recovered oil formed. (3) Spectrophotometric analysis of the residual oil. Three distinct HSP
solubility spheres were identified, within which the most effective solvents were xylene
(99.4% recovery), cyclohexane (99.5% recovery), and tetrahydrofuran (100% recovery).
Their high efficiency not only facilitated oil separation but also made the recovered oil
suitable for commercialization.