SMART-Evaporation System Removes Excess Water

As produced water management evolves in unconventional oil exploration and production, a transition is developing from waste products to beneficial, reusable products. During this transition, the aggregation, and storage of produced water becomes an important first step. Aggregation and storage have also evolved from frac tank storage to impoundments and above-ground storage tanks (AST). With these above-ground storage tanks, excess water that would normally be required to be injected down a disposal well can now be returned to the hydrosphere while reducing injection waste costs.

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A properly designed evaporation system isn’t based on just water volume, but also maintaining the storage tank site. Produced water contains high concentrations of salts and pollutants that should not be released into the environment. In many cases where a sprayer-evaporation system is used, these salts can be carried by the wind before evaporation occurs outside of containment, causing deposition onto the surrounding area.

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Hydrozonix offers its SMART-EVAPORATION process, which provides the ability to service a wide range of locations and conditions. Traditionally, evaporation is limited by the surface area of the above-ground storage vessel. Many places with a smaller footprint provide negligible evaporation at best. With the SMART-Evaporation system, the surface area of evaporatable water can be greatly increased by the use of the intelligent sprayer system. Sprayers are placed within the confines of the storage area/pit and water is lifted with a finely-tuned droplet size into the low-lying area space above the surface. This droplet size is ideal for evaporation while still limiting the ability to drift to undesirable locations via the wind. The intelligent sprayers are aware of the current position in the pit and are constantly calculating the maximum drift possible with the given wind speed and direction, ensuring the maximum volume is evaporated while still limiting potential particle drift.