Deep-sea reverse osmosis desalination for energy efficient low salinity enhanced oil recovery

Matteo Fasano, Matteo Morciano, Luca Bergamasco, Eliodoro Chiavazzo, Massimo Zampato, Stefano Carminati and Pietro Asinari

Applied Energy, 2021, vol. 304, issue C, No S0306261921010242

Abstract: The decrease in the oil discoveries fuels the development of innovative and more efficient extraction processes. It has been demonstrated that Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR, or tertiary recovery technique) offers prospects for producing 30 to 60% of the oil originally trapped in the reservoir. Interestingly, oil extraction is significantly enhanced by the injection of low salinity water into oilfields, which is known as one of the EOR techniques. Surface Reverse Osmosis (SRO) plants have been adopted to provide the large and continuous amount of low salinity water for this EOR technique, especially in offshore sites. In this article, we outline an original solution for producing low salinity water for offshore EOR processes, and we demonstrate its energy convenience. In fact, the installation of reverse osmosis plants under the sea level (Deep-Sea Reverse Osmosis, DSRO) is found to have significant potential energy savings (up to 50%) with respect to traditional SRO ones. This convenience mainly arises from the non-ideality of reverse osmosis membranes and hydraulic machines, and it is especially evident – from both energy and technological point of view – when the permeate is kept pressurized at the outlet of the reverse osmosis elements. In perspective, DSRO may be a good alternative to improve the sustainability of low salinity EOR.

Keywords: Energy efficiency; Water; Desalination; Reverse osmosis; Enhanced oil recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921010242
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:304:y:2021:i:c:s0306261921010242

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117661

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().