Dual Function Reverse Demulsifier and Demulsifier for the Improvement of Polymer Flooding Produced Water Treatment

Abstract Adding partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) to flood water for enhanced oil recovery has resulted in some difficulties for treatment and re-injection of produced water at Daqing Oilfield of China: Production of the injected HPAM increased water phase viscosity and emulsification of the produced fluid, leading to more oil carry-over; The state-of-art cationic water clarifiers showed poor compatibility with HPAM containing produced water due to formation of very sticky oily flocs which seriously pollutes bed filters and slop oil recovered in produced water treatment. Throughputs of existent produced water treatment facilities had to be lowered by up to 50% so that the HPAM containing produced water might be treated to re-injection specifications. As an alternative for the state-of-art cationic water clarifier, a nonionic reverse demulsifier and demulsifier consisting of both water soluble and oil soluble active components respectively for water clarification and water-in-oil emulsion breaking, was developed as a water dispersible micro-emulsion mixture. Injected into high water-cut o/w produced fluid prior to the initial oil/water separation, the dual function chemical greatly enhanced flocculation and coalescence of the oil droplets in the reverse crude oil emulsion while maintaining adequate emulsion breaking capability for downstream crude oil dehydration, leading to less oil carry-over and looser emulsion in the influent water of produced water treatment facilities. In one field application, injected at a dosage of 15mg/L into the polymer flooding produced reverse crude oil emulsion upstream of oil/water separation, the dual function chemical reduced the oil content in the influent water of a produced water treatment facility from 2004mg/L to 443mg/L, and lowered the oil content in the effluent water of bed filters from 31mg/L to 4.1mg/L without application of water clarifiers.