Optimal design of a novel oil-water separator for raw oil produced from ASP flooding

Abstract Oil recovery can be greatly enhanced with the ASP (Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer) flooding technology by increasing sweeping efficiency and displacing efficiency. But the emulsification of the residual chemical in the recovered oil from ASP flooding makes it very difficult to separate water from oil. To make the oil–water separation of ASP products more efficient to meet the discharge standards, some improvements need to be made on regular oil–water separators. Based on the physical properties of ASP products in Daqing Oilfield, novel packing and newly designed Crude oil–water separator are studied in this paper. Orthogonal test is used to optimize the design of the novel separator, including the structure and material of coalescent packing, as well as the operating conditions. Experiment results suggest that the separation efficiency of the new type separator is higher than 98%. Both the outlet oil phase and the water phase have met the corresponding standards. Oil concentration in the discharge water is reduced to 600 mg L− 1 and average drop size is about 6 μm. It can be easily concluded that the new type separator has a better performance on the oil–water separation of ASP products. At the end of this paper, the drop size distribution (DSD) in the outlet water is analyzed to provide data for the wastewater treatment process following the crude oil–water separation.