Process for solidifying organic and inorganic provisional constituents contained in produced water from heavy oil operations

A method of recovering oil from an oil well and treating produced water, comprising:

• (a) recovering an oil-water mixture from the oil well;
• (b) separating the oil-water mixture to produce an oil product and the produced water that includes dissolved inorganic and organic solids;
• (c) concentrating the produced water in an evaporator to produce a distillate and evaporator blowdown wherein the evaporator blowdown includes dissolved inorganic and organic solids;
• (d) directing the distillate to a steam generator and producing steam;
• (e) injecting the steam into an injection well which gives rise to the oil-water mixture in the oil well;
• and
• (f) directing the evaporator blowdown to a crystallizer and
• (i) concentrating the evaporator blowdown in the crystallizer by heating the evaporator blowdown;
• (ii) wherein concentrating the evaporator blowdown forms an organic melt and causes dissolved solids in the evaporator blowdown to precipitate and crystallize to form solid crystals which are suspended in the organic melt;
• and
• (iii) solidifying the organic melt by cooling the organic melt resulting in a solidified organic melt having solid crystals suspend therein.