Gisle Øye, Ugelstad Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
The amounts of water produced in the petroleum industry are rising and efficient water treatment systems are becoming increasingly important to handle the large volumes. Common management strategies for offshore produced water are treating the water to regulatory standards and discharge it to sea or treating the water and re-inject it into a reservoir, either for disposal or for pressure maintenance. The presence of dispersed components in the produced water gives rise to various interfaces and their properties will influence both strategies. In this presentation I will first show how the interfacial properties can influence drop-bubble attachment during gas flotation and secondly how they can influence the interactions between solids and pore walls, which will be important for produced water injectivity.
