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Supercritical Water Desalination: Thermodynamic Characterization and Economic Analysis

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2020, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Chemical Engineering (Engineering and Technology).
The treatment of produced water (hereafter referred to as brine) from oil/gas reservoirs will prove a significant cost burden for producers; the U.S. produced 21 billion barrels of this waste in 2019 alone. Reinjection is the traditional management method; however, the availability of injection disposal is dependent on the location of the well, and is potentially unavailable when the well is remote. Average disposal costs can reach up to $8.00·bbl-1, with costs increasing with brine salinity. A portion of this study discusses a novel technique employed to treat high salinity brines, called supercritical water desalination (SCWD). This technique utilized favorable characteristics of water near the pseudocritical point to separate dissolved solids. Two scenarios were considered in a techno-economic analysis; one which removed all dissolved solids from the brine (termed “zero liquid discharge” (ZLD), the other concentrated brine to reduce liquid waste volume. For high salinities, this technique was shown to be economically feasible with costs ranging from $3.49 to $17.28·bbl-1 in an expanded sensitivity analysis. Additionally, this study considered the thermodynamic characteristics of a binary system of CaCl2-H2O to assist in brine modeling efforts for future studies. A series of correlations were presented to describe the critical line, vapor-liquid equilibria, specific volume and enthalpy for CaCl¬2-H2O. The correlations were augmented by additional specific heat data obtained at pseudocritical condition, allowing for further tuning of the specific enthalpy correlation.
Jason Trembly (Advisor)
Natalie Kruse-Daniels (Committee Member)
Sumit Sharma (Committee Member)
Guy Riefler (Committee Member)
Marc Singer (Committee Member)
126 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Able, C. (2020). Supercritical Water Desalination: Thermodynamic Characterization and Economic Analysis [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1591978393019881

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Able, Chad. Supercritical Water Desalination: Thermodynamic Characterization and Economic Analysis. 2020. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1591978393019881.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Able, Chad. "Supercritical Water Desalination: Thermodynamic Characterization and Economic Analysis." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1591978393019881

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)