Colloid chemistry and experimental techniques for understanding fundamental behaviour of produced water in oil and gas production.

Due to increasing volumes of produced water and environmental concerns related to its discharge, water treatment has become a major challenge during the production of crude oil and natural gas. With continuously stricter regulations for discharging produced water to sea, the operators are obliged to look for ways to improve the treatment processes or re-use the water in a beneficial way, for example as a pressure support during oil recovery (produced water re-injection). To improve the knowledge of the underlying phenomena governing separation processes, detailed information of the composition and interfacial properties of produced water is undoubtedly useful and could provide valuable input for better understanding and improving separation models.