This document proposes a system to improve water reuse in oil reservoirs using microbubbles, kinematic filtration, and LED treatment. The system aims to significantly reduce environmental impact and costs by (1) using microbubbles to increase pressure and sweep efficiency to remove more oil, and (2) filtering and sterilizing water through kinematic filtration and LED treatment for reuse. The overall goal is to improve the wheel of water reuse without major invention by taking a scientific and technological approach.

1. Jack Williams, Isaac Kenyon, Minh Ngoc Nguyen

2. We are not inventing the wheel, just improving it!
Our focus is on conventional oil reservoirs both onshore and offshore
Using a scientific and technological approach, we aim to solve
the problem of
Water Re-use
Water Treatment
Water Consumption
Water Recycle
Hoping that this will significantly reduce the
impact it will have to the environment, the
economical feasibility on the industry… as well
as some political strain.

3. Micro-Bubbles
Using standard atmospheric air and not CO2, this process will create hydro
bubbles that will be oscillated using an ultra sound system without causing
concern to the environment. These oscillating nano-metric sized bubbles will be
incorporated into the water that will increase the pressure and the sweep
efficiency of removing oil from the reservoir sand and is effectively much like a
cleaning process. This will also reduce the amount of water.
This works in two ways:
1. They will pop when they are down in the reservoir, thus
increasing the pressure and force oil up to the surface through
controlled boreholes.
2. They don’t pop but do expand due to oscillation which produces
a strong rolling force on oil stuck to the bottom solid surface
following the path of least resistance (which is inevitably the
boreholes).
Zimmerman, W., Tesar, V., Butler, S. and Bandulasena, H. (2008). Microbubble Generation. Recent Patents on Engineering,
2(1), pp.1-8.

4. Kinematic Filtration
This is a process that will occur after the water has been separated from the oil
using an Api process that is already in place and put into a controlled elevated
very wide storage tank. The pressure from the tank will produce a flow of
water down a high gradient piped slope, essentially carrying water from A to
B. Using gravity a natural parameter as the water flows through the system
without the use of expensive energy consumption.
Within the high gradient pipe there 9
cylindrical filters combining;
1. Sand that removes debris
2. Carbon which filters out colour and taste
3. A cup that removes pathogens
Water will eventually pass into the next section of the
process
Information taken form Purite

5. LED Treatment
The water from the kinematic filtration will pass into a LED systems tract
which sterilises the water with UV light using CFD (Computational Fluid
Dynamics) to calculate the level of treatment needed for the wastewater to
minimise energy costs. It is easy to install within existing pipe work with minor
maintenance needed.
Bilenko et.al, Y. (2010). New UV Technology for Point-Of-Use Water Disinfection.
LED light requires;
consumption of little
power and is 5x more
efficient than UV light
sensors.

6. System Overview