Scientists from the ConocoPhillips Center for Water Sustainability, the University of Texas Qatar, and Sydney University of Technology have worked together, on a project funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, to use the produced water to generate so-called “Blue Energy.
This depends on the phenomenon of osmosis, which is the movement of water molecules from a region of low concentration to a region of high concentration, through a semipermeable membrane.
If you have two solutions of water, one of them contains a high percentage of salt and the other has little or no salt, if these two solutions are placed side by side, with a thin semi-permeable membrane between them (so that the water molecules are allowed to pass through and not the salt ions), the water molecules would move from the low salinity side to the high salinity side.
The movement of water molecules across the membrane will increase the pressure that can ultimately be used to power a turbine and generate power.
This is called osmotic pressure or oppositional pressure, and it is what the “Blue Energy” technology is based on.
