2 Ways To Treat Produced Water

Oil and gas fields do more than just produce oil and gas. They also produced water. There are a lot of reasons for that. One is because water is often found in the exact same places as the oil and gas are, so when they are being pumped out of the ground, they bring water with them. Another is the fact that when fracking is used, water gets forced down into the deposits so that more gas and oil can be pumped. All that water comes back up as well. Since that water can't get out into the rest of the environment until it's treated for toxins, those fields need to have ways to treat that water. So, what are some ways to treat produced water?

Filtration Using Media

One way to treat produced water and get rid of the various toxins in it is to filter it through some kind of medium. There are all kinds of things that can be used as filtration media, including walnut shells, coal, and sand. The benefit of using the filtration method is that it is a relatively efficient way to filter out the toxins and other things in the water and there isn't a lot of energy expended in its process. However, depending on what exactly is in the water, the filtration media may have to be changed out very frequently and there will have to be containers for the pumps as well as the filtration material and the water as well as any backwash from the system. 

Multi-Stage Flash Distillation

Distillation involves heating up water or another liquid and then condensing it so that there is at least a partial separation of parts of the liquid. MFD uses flash evaporation as part of its process. The way that it works is that the water is forced into evaporation by being placed in an area where the pressure is lowered, instead of being put in a place where the temperature is raised. Heated water goes right into the lower pressure area. That makes the water immediately flash over into steam, which then starts to separate out into water and other materials. The produced water may go through this process more than once. The heat causes the water to be sterilized, which means that there won't need to be any chemicals added into the process to take care of that. 

Dealing with produced water on site means that there is less risk for it to get out and into the environment where it could hurt people. There are a lot of ways to treat the water. For more information, contact a water treatment facility such as ProSep.

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