Methods and systems for producing treated brines for desalination

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016229705-A1
Application number	US-201514719299-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 21, 2015
Priority date	Feb 11, 2015
Publication date	Aug 11, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Water treatment systems and associated methods are generally described. Certain embodiments of the water treatment systems and methods described herein may be used to treat water comprising one or more contaminants (e.g., oil, grease, suspended solids, scale-forming ions, volatile organic material) to remove at least a portion of the one or more contaminants. In some embodiments, at least a portion of the treated water may be used directly in certain applications (e.g., oil and/or gas extraction processes). In some embodiments, at least a portion of the treated water may undergo desalination to produce substantially pure water and/or concentrated brine.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for treating water, comprising:
supplying a saline water input stream having a first concentration of a scale-forming ion to an ion-removal apparatus; removing, within the ion-removal apparatus, at least a portion of the scale-forming ion from the saline water input stream to produce a first ion-diminished stream having a second concentration of the scale-forming ion, wherein the second concentration is lower than the first concentration; collecting a product stream comprising at least a portion of the first ion-diminished stream; removing, within the ion-removal apparatus, at least a portion of the scale-forming ion from the saline water input stream to produce a second ion-diminished stream having a third concentration of the scale-forming ion, wherein the third concentration is lower than the second concentration; and feeding the second ion-diminished stream to a desalination system to produce a substantially pure water stream having a lower concentration of a dissolved salt than the second ion-diminished stream and a concentrated brine stream having a higher concentration of the dissolved salt than the second ion-diminished stream.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising mixing at least a portion of the first ion-diminished stream and at least a portion of the substantially pure water stream to produce a mixed water stream.

3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the mixing ratio by mass of the substantially pure water stream to the first ion-diminished stream is in the range of about 2:1 to about 4:1.

4 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising collecting a second product stream comprising at least a portion of the substantially pure water stream, a third product stream comprising at least a portion of the concentrated brine stream, and/or collecting a fourth product stream comprising at least a portion of the mixed water stream.

5 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the ion-removal apparatus is configured to remove at least about 5% of the scale-forming ion from the saline water input stream.

6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first ion-diminished stream contains the scale-forming ion in an amount of about 5000 mg/L or less.

7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the second ion-diminished stream contains the scale-forming ion in an amount of about 750 mg/L or less.

8 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising removing, within a separation apparatus fluidically connected to the ion-removal apparatus, at least a portion of a suspended and/or emulsified immiscible phase from the saline water input stream, the first ion-diminished stream, and/or the second ion-diminished stream to form at least one immiscible-phase-diminished stream.

9 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein the separation apparatus comprises an induced air flotation (IAF) separator.

10 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising removing, within a suspended solids removal apparatus fluidically connected to the ion-removal apparatus, at least a portion of suspended solids from the saline water input stream, the first ion-diminished stream, the second ion-diminished stream, and/or at least one immiscible-phase-diminished stream to form at least one suspended-solids-diminished stream.

11 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising increasing or decreasing the pH of the first ion-diminished stream, the second ion-diminished stream, at least one immiscible-phase-diminished stream, and/or at least one suspended-solids-diminished stream to form at least one pH-adjusted stream.

12 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising removing, within a volatile organic material (VOM) removal apparatus fluidically connected to the ion-removal apparatus, at least a portion of VOM from the saline water input stream, the first ion-diminished stream, the second ion-diminished stream, at least one immiscible-phase-diminished stream, at least one suspended-solids-diminished stream, and/or at least one pH-adjusted stream to form at least one VOM-diminished stream.

13 . The method according to claim 1 , further comprising precipitating at least a portion of the salt from the concentrated brine stream.

14 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the desalination system is a humidification-dehumidification (HDH) desalination system.

15 . The method according to claim 14 , wherein the HDH system comprises a bubble column humidifier and/or a bubble column dehumidifier.

16 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the dissolved salt is sodium chloride (NaCl).

17 . A water treatment system, comprising:
an ion-removal apparatus configured to remove at least a portion of a scale-forming ion from a saline water input stream having a first concentration of the scale-forming ion to produce a first ion-diminished stream having a second concentration of the scale-forming ion under a first set of operating conditions, wherein the second concentration is lower than the first concentration, and a second ion-diminished stream having a third concentration of the scale-forming ion under a second set of operating conditions, wherein the third concentration is lower than the second concentration, wherein the ion-removal apparatus comprises an outlet configured to collect a product stream comprising at least a portion of the first ion-diminished stream; and a desalination system fluidically connected to the ion-removal apparatus, wherein the desalination system is configured to receive the second ion-diminished stream and produce a substantially pure water stream having a lower concentration of a dissolved salt than the second ion-diminished stream and a concentrated brine stream having a higher concentration of the dissolved salt than the second ion-diminished stream.

18 . The water treatment system according to claim 17 , further comprising a mixing apparatus fluidically connected to the ion-removal apparatus and the desalination system, wherein the mixing apparatus is configured to combine at least a portion of the first ion-diminished stream with at least a portion of the substantially pure water stream to produce a mixed water stream.

19 . The water treatment system according to claim 18 , wherein the mixing ratio by mass of the substantially pure water stream to the first ion-diminished stream is in the range of about 2:1 to about 4:1.

20 . The water treatment system according to claim 17 , wherein the system is configured to collect a second product stream comprising at least a portion of the substantially pure water stream, a third product stream comprising at least a portion of the concentrated brine stream, and/or a fourth product stream comprising at least a portion of the mixed water stream.

21 - 41 . (canceled)

Assignees

• Gradiant Corp

Inventors

• St John Maximus G
• Lam Steven
• Govindan Prakash Narayan

Classifications

• C02F1/04 Primary

  by distillation or evaporation · CPC title

• C02F2101/10

  Inorganic compounds · CPC title

• C02F1/24

  by flotation (C02F1/465 takes precedence) · CPC title

• C02F9/00 Primary

  Multistage treatment of water, waste water or sewage · CPC title

• C02F11/122

  using filter presses (C02F11/123 takes precedence) · CPC title