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AssigneeDrilling Waste, Incorporated
InventorsJules A. Simon, John A. Young, Michael D. Ford, Harold C. Bourgeois
Estimating the term…
A process and apparatus are disclosed for separating drilling mud and waste materials into pure water and a concentrated solid waste phase which is easily handled and disposed of. The process and apparatus provide for adjusting the pH of the drilling mud and waste materials to be separated, mixing the thus pH adjusted mud and waste materials with a flocculating agent and allowing the solids to settle out. The solids are then removed and further dewatered to produce a relatively dry concentrated solid waste phase. If desired, the clarified water is mixed with finely divided activated charcoal to remove various impurities from the clarified water. The mixture of clarified water and charcoal are then filtered to produce a filtrate stream which is further separated to produce pure water and a liquid phase containing dissolved solids. The pure water can then be reused in the drilling process or safely discharged into the environment.
A process for separating drilling mud and waste materials which comprises mixing the drilling mud and waste materials with a flocculating agent, allowing the mixture of flocculating agent and drilling mud and waste materials to separate into a first clarified liquid phase and a phase containing flocculated solids, separating said first clarified liquid phase from said phase containing flocculating solids, placing said phase containing flocculated solids on an inclined surface to allow liquid to drain from said flocculated solids, collecting and storing the thus dewatered flocculated solids, collecting liquid from said inclined surface which has drained from said dewatered flocculated solids, combining the thus collected liquid with said first clarified liquid phase to produce a second clarified liquid phase, filtering said second clarified liquid phase to produce a filtrate stream and separating said clarified liquid phase to produce substantially pure water and a liquid phase containing dissolved solids.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.