Optimization of physico-chemical and membrane filtration processes to remove high molecular weight polymers from produced water in enhanced oil recovery operations

Polymer flooding is an enhanced oil recovery technique to extract the large portion of leftover subsurface oil following conventional extraction methods. In the flooding process, a long-chain polymer, such as partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM), is added to the displacing fluid to increase the mobility and extraction of the oil phase. Nevertheless, the challenge of managing produced water from polymer flooding operations is high because...