SBIR Phase I: Modified Finned Tube Heat Exchangers for Economically Purifying Produced Water

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力涉及改善石油和天然气的可持续性。为了实现这一目标，我们提议在井场使用废气净化产出水，以减少处置成本、碳足迹和处置井的人为地震活动。这一过程是由专利设备实现的，该设备通过在热交换器内执行整个过程来从根本上改变热蒸馏，以降低设备和能源成本。在德克萨斯州，使用每年燃烧的天然气，拟议的X-VAPTM系统理论上可以净化2020年美国330亿桶产出水问题的很大一部分。净化过程中排出的盐水将被浓缩成特定密度，作为钻井液循环使用。这种新的循环经济将通过减少大型柴油水车运输源水、处理产出水和运送钻井用重盐水的需求来提供环境效益。社会将受益于一种新的可再生淡水资源，并减少石油和天然气生产商与农民和牧场主争夺日益稀缺的淡水资源的需要。这个SBIR第一阶段项目旨在证明X-VAPTM热蒸馏系统可以通过降低设备成本和能源需求从根本上改善热蒸馏。在这项专利发明之前，包括蒸馏和污染物分离在内的整个热蒸馏过程从未在热交换器内进行过。独特的设计提供了可拆卸的泉水托盘和蒸馏塔，以解决包括现场结垢在内的维护问题。我们的行业经验丰富的工程师团队将通过执行原型实验室实验和协调模拟来校准和改进设备设计(第一阶段)，进一步测试、改进和验证现有的热蒸馏原型。这些新颖的模拟将需要根据协调的原型实验室测试进行校准，以实现模拟和实验室测试之间90%的一致性。这些测试数据和相关的模拟将被用于扩大原型设计的规模，以有效地处理通常在油气井现场遇到的大量产出水。拟议的研究和模拟测试将验证专利系统，并在商业化(第二阶段)之前创建一个拟议的客户现场测试计划。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project involves improving oil and gas sustainability. To achieve that goal, we are proposing purifying produced water at the wellsite using waste natural gas to reduce disposal costs, carbon footprint and human induced seismicity from disposal wells. This process is enabled by patented equipment that fundamentally changes thermal distillation by performing the entire process inside a heat exchanger to reduce equipment and energy costs. In Texas, using the amount of gas that is flared annually, the proposed X-VAPTM system can theoretically purify a significant percentage of U.S. produced water problem of 33 billion barrels in 2020. The brine discharge from the purification process will be concentrated into specific densities to be recycled as a drilling fluid. This new circular economy will provide environmental benefits by reducing the need for large diesel water trucks to move the source water, dispose the produced water and deliver heavy brine for drilling. Society will benefit with a new renewable source of fresh water and reduce the need for oil and gas producers to compete with farmers and ranchers for increasingly scarce fresh water resources.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to prove the X-VAPTM thermal distillation system can fundamentally improve thermal distillation by reducing equipment costs and energy requirements. Before this patented invention, the entire thermal distillation including the distillation and separation from contaminates has never been performed inside a heat exchanger. The unique design provides a removable spring water tray and distillation column to address maintenance issues including scaling in the field. Our team of industry-experienced engineers will further test, improve and validate the existing thermal distillation prototype by performing prototype lab experiments and coordinated simulations to calibrate and improve equipment designs (Phase I). These novel simulations will need to be calibrated against coordinated prototype laboratory tests to achieve a 90% agreement between simulations and laboratory tests. This testing data and correlated simulations will be utilized to scale the prototype design to efficiently handle large volumes of produced water typically encountered at oil and gas well sites. The proposed research and simulation testing will validate the patented system and create a proposed program for customer field testing prior to commercialization (Phase II).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.