Mini Project Report

Topic: Flare Gas Utilization for the production of potable water for Oil and Gas Field (MOL)

Project Supervisor: Engr. Qurat-Ul-Ain

Group Members: Ehsan Ullah Abdul Hai 09PWCHE0533 09PWCHE0523

Kaleem Raza 09PWCHE0522 Bashir Ahmed 09PWCHE0501

Department: Chemical Engineering University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar

Contents:
1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) Introduction Objective Literature Review Material Selection Process Discussion Cost Analysis Material Balance

1) Introduction:
Water is a great necessity of life. Water makes up 70-75% of the body weight of the average human being. A person can survive for up to 4 weeks without food but no longer than 3 days without water. Water performs many different functions inside the body. It forms the bulk of blood and tissue fluid and is therefore essential for transporting nutrients, hormones and waste products around the body. Water helps control the delicate balances of concentrations within the cells. 1.1.Water on Earth: A question arises that how much water is there on, in, and above the Earth? As you know, the Earth is a watery place. About 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water. But water also exists in the air as water vapor, in rivers and lakes, in icecaps and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in aquifers etc. Water is never sitting still, though, and thanks to the water cycle, our planet's water supply is constantly moving from one place to another and from one form to another. Things would get pretty stale without the water cycle. For a detailed explanation of where Earth's water is, look at the data table below. Notice how of the world total water supply of about 332.5 million mi3 of water, over 96 percent is saline. And, of the total freshwater, over 68 percent is locked up in ice and glaciers. Another 30 percent of freshwater is in the ground. Rivers are the source of most of the fresh surface water people use, but they only constitute about 300 mi3 (1,250 km3), about 1/10,000th of one percent of total water. Water Source Water volume, in cubic miles Percent of Fresh water 0 68.6 0 30.1 0 0.05 0.86 Percent of total water 96.54 1.74 1.69 0.76 0.93 0.001 0.022

Oceans, Seas, & Bays Ice caps, Glaciers, & permanent snow Ground water Fresh Saline Soil Moisture Ground Ice & Permafrost

321,000,000 5,773,000 5,614,000 2,526,000 3,088,000 3,959 71,970

Lakes 42,320 0 0.013 Fresh 21,830 0.26 0.007 Saline 20,490 0 0.007 Atmosphere 3,0955 0.04 0.001 Swamp water 2,752 0.03 0.008 Rivers 509 0.006 0.0002 Biological water 269 0.003 0.0001 Source: Igor Shiklomanov's chapter "World fresh water resources" in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York).

1.2.Water scarcity: Water scarcity includes both water stress and water crisis 1.2.1. Water Stress: The concepts of water stress and water scarcity are relatively new. Fifty years ago, when there was fewer than half the current number of people on the planet, the common perception was that water was an infinite resource. People were not as wealthy then as they are today, consumed fewer calories and ate less meat, so less water was needed to produce their food. They required a third of the volume of water we presently take from rivers. Today, the competition for water resources is much more intense. This is because there are now over seven billion people on the planet; their consumption of water-thirsty meat and vegetables is rising, and there is increasing competition for water from industry, urbanization and bio-fuel crops. The total amount of available freshwater supply is also decreasing because of climate change, which has caused receding glaciers, reduced stream and river flow, and shrinking lakes. Many aquifers have been over-pumped and are not recharging quickly. Although the total fresh water supply is not used up, much has become polluted, salted, unsuitable or otherwise unavailable for drinking, industry and agriculture. To avoid a global water crisis, farmers will have to strive to increase productivity to meet growing demands for food, while industry and cities find ways to use water more efficiently. The New York Times article, "Southeast Drought Study Ties Water Shortage to Population, Not Global Warming", summarizes the findings of Columbia University researcher on the subject of the droughts in the American Southeast between 2005 and 2007. The findings were published in the Journal of Climate. They say the water shortages resulted from population size more than rainfall. Census figures show that Georgias population rose from 6.48 to 9.54 million between 1990 and 2007. After studying data from weather instruments, computer models and measurements of tree rings which reflect rainfall, they found that the droughts were not unprecedented and result from normal climate patterns and random weather events. "Similar droughts unfolded over the last thousand years", the researchers wrote, "Regardless of climate change, they added, similar weather patterns can be expected regularly in the future, with similar results." As the temperature increases, rainfall in the Southeast will increase but because of evaporation the area may get even drier. The researchers concluded with a statement saying that

any rainfall comes from complicated internal processes in the atmosphere and are very hard to predict because of the large amount of variables. 1.2.2. Water Crisis: A water crisis is a situation where the available potable, unpolluted water within a region is less than that region's demand. The United Nations and other world organizations consider a variety of regions to have water crises such that it is a global concern. Other organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, argue that there is no water crisis in such places, but that steps must still be taken to avoid one. Manifestations: There are several principal manifestations of the water crisis.

Inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people Inadequate access to water for sanitation and waste disposal for 2.5 billion people Groundwater over drafting (excessive use) leading to diminished agricultural yields Overuse and pollution of water resources harming biodiversity Regional conflicts over scarce water resources sometimes resulting in warfare

Waterborne diseases and the absence of sanitary domestic water are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. For children under age five, waterborne diseases are the leading cause of death. At any given time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from waterborne diseases. According to the World Bank, 88 percent of all waterborne diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. Water is the underlying tenuous balance of safe water supply, but controllable factors such as the management and distribution of the water supply itself contribute to further scarcity. A 2006 United Nations report focuses on issues of governance as the core of the water crisis, saying "There is enough water for everyone" and "Water insufficiency is often due to mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and a shortage of investment in both human capacity and physical infrastructure". It has also been claimed, primarily by economists, that the water situation has occurred because of a lack of property rights, government regulations and subsidies in the water sector, causing prices to be too low and consumption too high. Vegetation and wildlife are fundamentally dependent upon adequate freshwater resources. Marshes, bogs and riparian zones are more obviously dependent upon sustainable water supply, but forests and other upland ecosystems are equally at risk of significant productivity changes as water availability is diminished. In the case of wetlands, considerable area has been simply taken from wildlife use to feed and house the expanding human population. But other areas have suffered reduced productivity from gradual diminishing of freshwater

inflow, as upstream sources are diverted for human use. In seven states of the U.S. over 80 percent of all historic wetlands were filled by the 1980s, when Congress acted to create a no net loss of wetlands. In Europe extensive loss of wetlands has also occurred with resulting loss of biodiversity. For example many bogs in Scotland have been developed or diminished through human population expansion. One example is the Portlethen Moss in Aberdeen shire. On Madagascars highland plateau, a massive transformation occurred that eliminated virtually all the heavily forested vegetation in the period 1970 to 2000. The slash and burn agriculture eliminated about ten percent of the total countrys native biomass and converted it to a barren wasteland. These effects were from overpopulation and the necessity to feed poor indigenous peoples, but the adverse effects included widespread gully erosion that in turn produced heavily silted rivers that run red decades after the deforestation.

1.3.Oil and Gas Fields: Oil and gas fields are mostly in arid regions. And in arid region there is a great shortage of potable water. But as we know that in oil and gas fields Produced water is also produced along with the oil and gas. Oil and gas reservoirs have a natural water layer (formation water) that lies under the hydrocarbons. Oil reservoirs frequently contain large volumes of water, while gas reservoirs tend to have smaller quantities. To achieve maximum oil recovery additional water is often injected into the reservoirs to help force the oil to the surface. Both the formation water and the injected water are eventually produced along with the oil and therefore as the field becomes depleted the produced water content of the oil increases. Historically, produced water was disposed of in large evaporation ponds. However, this has become an increasingly unacceptable disposal method from both environmental and social perspectives. Produced water is considered an industrial waste. But unfortunately there are still some oil and gas fields where this produced water is disposed in large evaporation ponds which is causing all type of danger for the people living nearby as well as the workers/engineers employed in the company. To be more specific, MOL is still using evaporation ponds for its produced water disposal and there is no action taken to treat this water. But the interesting thing is that MOL buys water for the potable use of their employees and workers, and its really uneconomic that they have their own huge amount of produced water which can be treated to fulfill the potable water use for the company. The produced water produced in oil and gas field contains huge amount of amine salts in it and these amine salts are really hazardous for humans, it can cause skin cancer when its contact is excessive with skin. The amount of amine salts in the produced water produced in MOL is 14000mg/L. This value shows clearly that amount of salts is way too high in produced water.

2) Objective:
As we discussed about the production of produced water in oil and gas field, there is also some flare gases which is produced along with this produced water, oil and gas. And these flare gases are burned in the atmosphere/surrounding and by doing so, the heat produced by these flare gases is wasted. Our main objective is to utilize/use the heat produced from these flare gases to treat the produced water so that it can be ready for potable use. Doing so wont be an easy task but as the huge amount of heat as well as water is being wasted, there should be thought of a way to make use of one for another i.e. heat for water.

3) Literature Review:
In 2012 Kim Choon Ng et;al studied the conventional desalination is used to discharge water but it is not environmentally friendly, because it uses electricity and for each kilowatt hour energy is used, an unavoidable amount of emissions of CO2 at the power stations occurs, also hazardous salts are discharged into environment. So new method of adsorption desalination is studied and compared with different technologies such as RO, MSF, MED etc. AD desalination and cooling has low payable energy cost for desalination because thermal energy is taken free from solar energy (renewable or waste heat energy etc).[1] Different techniques of MED-VC is assisted with solar power is analyzed by M.A. Sharaf et;al in 2011. The comparison between the two technologies i-e MED TVC and MED-PF-MVC is analyzed. In MED-PF-MVC solar energy is used directly in the boiler heat exchanger unit through steam ejector, while in MED-PF-MVC electrical power is generated by SORC to power on the vapor compression. The comparison is performed in the parabolic trough collector. In first technique hot oil is considered in solar field and water in the boiler, while in the second technique toluene organic oil and water as W.F is used. It is concluded that PTC(solar collectors) is more efficient and MED-PF-TVC gives attractive result compared with MED-PF-MVC in accord with lower SPC, stream flow rate, total water price and thermo-economic product cost. It is also concluded that the existence of steam ejector reduce may reduce the need of more evaporators to increase the GR.[2] Veera Gnaneswar Gude et;al in 2011 discussed about phase change desalination process and six examples of applications for the illustration of a process for sustainable desalination. Three examples are about the use of solar energy for desalination purposes and the other three examples i-e waste heat rejected by an absorption refrigeration unit driven by grid power and by solar collector and the third by photovoltaic array. A solar heat of waste heat cycle is proposed for desalination purposes.[3] Quen chen et-al in 2012 suggested various materials for the boiler designing . As low grade fuel i.e natural gas etc is used in indirect boiler and the steam produced is used in the tube, for indirect heat transfer for various applications etc. To avoid the pipe from corrosion etc, copper pipe is coated with polypropylene and for boiler is manufactured from stainless steel material to increase the lifetime of boiler.[4] Sephton in 1982 increasing the rate of evaporation , vapor tube foam evaporation is used(VTFE). In this brine side heat transfer coefficient is increased by this temperature needs to drive evaporation and energy requirement is reduced. In turn evaporation rate and evaporation capacity is increased under constant temperature conditions. The application of VTFE in this research is presented. It is applied to multiple effect evaporators, to evaporation with vapor compression to drive the process and to waste heat evaporation of aqueous solution. VTFE is considered effective and achievable improvement of industrial evaporation. Waste heat VTFE is used to many existing power plants to increase turbine efficiency, produced distilled water for boiler feed and potable or in plant use. VTFE reduces the cost of distilled water to the lowest attainable industry because of the only pump cost and free waste heat.[5]

4) Material Selection:
It is obvious that we needed something to treat the water, and for that purpose we decided to get all the given materials. 4.1.Boiler: For boiler we decided to get a carbon sheet of 0.07in thickness. And then this carbon sheet was rolled in the diameter of 12in having the height of 15.5in. The allowable pressure for this material is 8.5 bar. 4.2.Evaporating pond: As we planned to treat the water in evaporating pond, so for that purpose we needed to make a small evaporating pond for our experiment. The material of construction for the evaporating pond is Polyvinylchloride (PVC) with an internal diameter of 13in and height of 5in. Its capacity is 10litres. 4.3.Other accessories: For completing our fabrication of the equipment, we also needed some more accessories for this purpose. The accessories are; 1) Temperature Sensor: Its a type of thermocouple with the temperature measuring range of 0-400C. As well use the waste heat from flare gases so there might be some temperature at which the boiler is not safe to handle, so its purely for safety purpose as well as the reading of process data. 2) Pressure Sensor: Its type of bourdon gauge and its pressure measuring range is 0-35bar. As the steam generates in the boiler, there might also be some pressure which should be present in the boiler and as boilers are known for its bursting when not handled carefully thats why we are using pressure sensor to keep of process in safe conditions. 3) Insulation: As there might be some heat losses if the boiler surface is left bare to the environment, so we used packing material as an insulator between the boilers surface and the surrounding. The thickness of the packing material is 0.25in. 4) Copper pipe: This is the most important material used in our equipment because it not only connects the boiler and evaporating pond together, it is also a medium for the flow of steam from boiler to the evaporating pond. Not only the flow, it is also the medium for the heat transfer between the steam and the produced water in the evaporating pond.

5) Process Discussion:
In process discussion, the most important part is the process flow sheet/diagram. It is given below.

As we discussed in the objective section about the utilization heat generated by flare gases for the production of potable water. So the above figure shows the idea of using that flare heat. The heat generated by flare gases will be given to the boiler for vaporization purpose. In this process the boiler is filled with the fresh water and the evaporating pond is filled with the produced water. The boiler and evaporating pond is connected to each other with the help of a copper pipe. There are four operations taking place in this process, two vaporization processes and two condensation processes; 1. 2. 3. 4. Vaporization of fresh water Condensation of fresh water Vaporization of produced water Condensation of produced water

5.1.Vaporization of fresh water: As the boiler is filled with the fresh water and it is heated by the heat generated for the flare gases. Because of the heat, the fresh water present in the boiler reaches it saturation temperature and when the heat is constantly given to the boiler, the vapor generation/vaporization of the fresh water starts and these vapors/steam passes through the copper tube to reach the evaporating pond.

5.2.Condensation of fresh water: When vapors/steam passes through the evaporating pond, it heats the water present in the evaporating pond with the process of heat transfer i.e. conduction between the surface of copper and produced water and convection between the molecules of potable water. And because of that heat transfer, the steam condenses and the condensed steam is collected in the condensed water tank.

5.3.Vaporization of Produced water: As the heat transfer between the produced water and the steam occurs, because of this heat transfer vapor generation also starts and these vapors are from the produced water. Our aim is to vaporize all the produce water and leave the salts behind in the evaporating pond, so for that purpose, this process will take some time.

5.4.Condensation of Produced water: The vapors/steam generated by the process of heat transfer are condensed in a heat exchanger and then collected in the treated water tank. And the salt left behind in the evaporating pond is also collected.

6) Cost Analysis:
The total cost for the procurement and fabrication of our project is Rs.5750. The detailed cost is given in the table below.

Equipment

Cost

Boiler Copper pipe

Sensors Evaporating pond and other accessories Manufacturing cost Total

Rs.1320 Rs.480
Rs.1650 Rs.1300 Rs.1000 Rs.5750

7) Material Balance:
Material balance is based on law of conservation of mass. It is mathematically written as;

[Mass In] [Mass Out] = [Mass Accumulated]

Material balance is done on individually on four equipments. 1) 2) 3) 4) On Boiler On Condensed water tank On Evaporating pond On treated water tank

7.1.On Boiler: At start of the process, 10L of fresh water is added to the boiler, the density of this fresh water is 1kg/L. It is shown mathematically below; V1 = 10L Density = 1kg/L So, Mass, M1= (V1)(Density) = (10L)(1kg/L) M1 = 10kg So the mass inlet to the boiler is 10kg.

M1 = 10kg

M2 = 1kg/hr

Boiler

7.2.On Condensed water tank: The inlet stream of condensed water tank is the outlet stream of the boiler. Its balance can be shown mathematically by; V2 = 2L in 2hrs Density = 1kg/L So, Mass, M2 = (V2)(Density) = (2L)(1kg/L) M2 = 2kg in 2 hrs So in 10 hrs, M2 = 10kg And as there is no accumulation, Hence M1 = M2 in 10hrs

M2 = 1kg/hr

Output = 0

Condensed water tank

7.3.On Evaporating pond: The volume of evaporating pond is 6L and it will be filled with produced water. V3 = 6L Concentration of salts = 0.014kg/L Mass of salt in produced water = (V3)(Conc. Of salt) = (6L)(0.014kg/L)

= 0.084kg As, M3 = 6kg (water + salt) So, M3 = (6-0.084)kg M3 = 5.916kg (water)

M3 = 6kg M4 = 0.65kg/hr

Evaporating pond

7.4.On treated water tank: The outlet of evaporating pond is the inlet of treated water tank. The water from the evaporating pond evaporates at the rate of 0.65kg/hr M4 = 0.65kg in 1 hr As total mass of water is 5.916kg. So, All water will be evaporated in 9.1 hrs M3 = M4 in 9.1 hrs
Output = 0 M4 = 0.65kg/hr

Treated water tank

The table below shows the whole material balance clearly;

Component Boiler
Condensed water tank Evaporating tank Treated water tank

Mass In
10 Kg 1 Kg/hr 6 Kg 0.65 Kg/hr

Mass Out
1 Kg/hr 0 Kg 0.65 Kg/hr 0 Kg

Mass Generated
0 Kg 0 Kg 0 Kg 0 Kg

Mass Consumed
0 Kg 0 Kg 0 Kg 0 Kg

References:
1. Kim Choon Ng, Kyaw Thu, Youngdeuk Kim, Anutosh Chakraborty, Gary Amy. Adsorption desalination: An emerging low-cost thermal desalination method, Desilination, 2012. 2. M.A. Sharaf, A.S. Nafey , Lourdes Garca-Rodrguez Thermo-economic analysis of solar thermal power cycles assisted MED-VC (multi effect distillation-vapor compression) desalination processes, Energy 36(2011)2753-2764. 3. Veera Gnaneswar Gude a, Nagamany Nirmalakhandan, Shuguang Deng, Desalination using solar energy: Towards sustainability, Energy 36(2011)78-85. 4. Qun chen, Karen finney, hanning li, xiaohui zhang, vida sharifi, jim swithenbank, condensing boiler applications in the process industry, Applied energy 89(2012)30-36. 5. HUGO H. SEPHTON Vertical tube foam evaporation for water desalination, Desalination 42 (1982) 27-35.