Coalescence Process: The Optimal and Economical Solution for Offshore Produced Water Treatment

Produced water (PW) is the largest by-product of oil and gas production, which has a serious impact on water pollution in the offshore oil and gas industry. In industrial processes, it is necessary to separate hydrocarbons and oil along with water by methods such as gravity sedimentation, enhanced gravity sedimentation, and hydrocyclones from produced water. However, conventional technologies cannot achieve optimal separation requirements in a compact space under extreme conditions, such as emulsions and large volumes of PW. The PW treatment system must be green and efficient in order to benefit from the extensive exploration, production of offshore oil and gas in the future. Therefore, factors such as improving the purification efficiency, reducing the space occupation and the cost of practical use of a PW purification process on an offshore operational scale along with the new method of Combined fibers coalescence were investigated according to the operational works that have been don successfully.