CARLSBAD, N.M. (By SE New Mexico College, 16.Mar.2026, Words: 361) — Sunvapor, Inc. and Southeast New Mexico College (SENMC) commenced joint operations of the country’s first solar desalination facility located at a commercial salt water disposal well.
The salt water disposal well is operated by NGL Water Solutions Permian LLC, the largest produced water management company in the Permian Basin.
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“By hosting the Sunvapor pilot, we are evaluating how their technology can cost-effectively purify oilfield wastewater to standards that will enable uses outside of the oilfield. We are impressed with Sunvapor’s ability to operate on solar energy twenty-four hours a day utilizing their thermal battery technology as a means to continuously treat and dispose of produced water as an alternative to injection wells,” said Doug White, NGL Water Solutions Permian LLC.
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The 70 barrel per day oilfield water desalination pilot facility was built under a contract with the New Mexico Economic Development Department. The facility uses a desalination process patented by Sunvapor that hybridizes the combination of two thermal processes: a membrane distillation bottoming process and an evaporation topping process.
The integration of these processes enables an industry-leading thermal efficiency and recovery ratio for hypersaline oilfield water without the use of electricity. Instead of electricity, steam is used to drive the desalination process. The use of alternative energy for steam generation reduces the operating expenses and greenhouse gas emissions associated with fuel consumption.
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Oilfield water is a waste stream of oil extraction. For every barrel of oil extracted in the Permian Basin – the most productive oil region in the US – approximately 5 barrels of waste water come to the surface. There is far too much of this hypersaline wastewater to recycle in the oilfields, so the rest is currently injected into saltwater disposal wells. Desalination enables a reduction of up to 50% of the volume of injected wastewater. The resulting purified water stream, if shown to meet environmental quality standards, may eventually be used for agricultural, industrial and other purposes. One of the key technical challenges to Permian Basin water is that the total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration is four times that of seawater, and as a result, desalination is very energy intensive.
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