Patent ID: 7909098

Claim:
A method of recovering oil from an oil well comprising: a. recovering an oil/water mixture from the well; b. separating oil from the oil/water mixture to produce an oil product and produced water having dissolved silica therein; c. mixing a crystallizing reagent with the produced water to form crystals in the produced water and precipitating the dissolved silica; d. directing the produced water with the precipitated silica to a membrane; e. filtering the produced water with the membrane and producing a permeate stream; f directing the permeate stream to a steam generator and producing steam; g. injecting the steam into an injection well, giving rise to the formation of the oil/water mixture; and h. wherein filtering the produced water with the membrane produces a reject stream concentrated with the precipitated silica and wherein the method includes mixing at least a portion of the reject stream from the membrane with the produced water upstream of the membrane.