Patent ID: 7465376

Claim:
A method for treating fluids containing a variety of liquid, gaseous, and saline impurities contained or dissolved in the fluid by separating the impurities from the fluid, said method comprising the steps of: conveying a treatment fluid, defined as a base liquid containing impurities, to a preheating separating device in which said treatment fluid is preheated to a temperature below the boiling temperature of said base liquid, so that impurities with lower boiling points than said base liquid are separated from said base liquid; conveying a carrier gas to the treatment fluid through a closed carrier gas circuit for mixing with said treatment fluid; evaporating the mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid in such a manner that said base liquid is evaporated and impurities having boiling temperatures higher than the boiling point of said base liquid are left behind as a residual fluid portion, and said mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid forms a damp mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid vapor; conveying said damp mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid vapor to a concentrate separator unit from said residual fluid portion so that said residual fluid portion is separated from said damp mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid vapor as a concentrate; compressing said mixture of carrier gas and treatment fluid vapor into a mixture of carrier gas and dry treatment fluid vapor; cooling said mixture of carrier gas and dry treatment fluid vapor; conveying said mixture of carrier gas and dry treatment fluid vapor to a downstream condensate separator unit so that said dry treatment fluid vapor condenses and is separated from said carrier gas; and, returning carrier gas separated from said dry treatment fluid vapor back for remixing with said treatment fluid; whereby a variety of liquid, gaseous, and saline impurities contained or dissolved in the fluid and having different boiling points are removed from the treatment fluid.