Four Oilfield and Power Plant Projects: Why SINOKLE SFM™ Super-Hydrophilic Filter Media Is Long-Lasting and Stable
The most direct way to judge an industrial filter media is to look at real projects. SINOKLE's SFM™ super-hydrophilic modified self-cleaning filter media has left four typical application cases in domestic oilfields, overseas oilfields and overseas power plants between 2017 and 2025, with stable effluent data and simple operation.
The technical foundation first. SFM™ is developed based on interfacial molecular dynamics and microfluidics theory, with dual modification of covalently grafted chemical functional groups and physical micro-nano rough structures. Its surface simultaneously possesses extreme wettability: super-hydrophilic and underwater super-oleophobic — water contact angle below 5 degrees, underwater oil contact angle above 150 degrees. A 20–80 nm nano-hydration isolation layer prevents oil droplets from adhering or spreading, and high-frequency collisions within the micro-channels of the pores weaken the emulsified film so droplets spontaneously coalesce. Oil droplets coalesce to over 50 micrometers and then detach by critical shear, forming a dynamic capture–coalescence–detachment equilibrium. The separation precision lower limit is 0.45 micrometers, the removal rate of fine oil droplets is no less than 90%, and the effluent oil content is consistently below 5 mg/L.
Project 1: Changqing Oilfield produced-water treatment project. Delivered in 2017, with a treatment capacity of 20 m³/h and a two-stage CDFU plus SFM filter combined process. The influent oil content is up to 1,500 ppm; the SFM effluent oil content is below 5 ppm, the suspended-solids removal rate exceeds 95%, and the system has operated stably over the long term.
Project 2: PetroChina Huabei Oilfield produced-water treatment project. Delivered in 2020, with a treatment capacity of 10 m³/h, using two-stage CDFU cyclonic dissolved-air flotation plus SFM filters. No chemicals are added throughout the process; the effluent oil content is below 5 mg/L and suspended solids below 5 mg/L, meeting the effluent standard.
Project 3: A large oilfield wastewater treatment project in the Republic of the Congo, Africa. SINOKLE's benchmark overseas project: Phase I with a treatment scale of 4,600 m³/d was commissioned in 2023, and after Phase II expansion the scale reached 6,500 m³/d in 2025. The CDFU + CDOF + SFM combined process efficiently treats complex wastewater such as oilfield produced water and fracturing flowback fluid, with stable and compliant effluent quality.
Project 4: A heavy-oil power plant wastewater treatment project in Sierra Leone. Delivered in 2025, with a treatment capacity of 10 m³/h, using two-stage CDFU cyclonic dissolved-air flotation plus SFM filters. Purely physical oil removal with no chemical dosing; the effluent oil content is below 5 mg/L and suspended solids below 5 mg/L, achieving efficient purification of oily wastewater.
Supporting these four projects is the solid operational economics of SFM™: continuous operation cycles of 24–48 hours with constant pressure drop and no dead zones; system conveyance energy consumption reduced by 30–50%, backwash water consumption reduced by more than 60%, and operation cycles extended 3–5 times; backwashing with ordinary-strength clean water restores the initial clean state with nearly 100% lossless performance recovery; the covalently bonded layer resists acids and alkalis (pH 2–12) and abrasion, with a design service life of over 5 years. Equally remarkable is that the whole process is green: physical oil removal and coalescing demulsification generate no oily sludge, and the recovered oil can be recycled.
The technology comparison is also worth noting. Traditional walnut-shell and ordinary quartz sand media rely on mechanical sieving plus adsorption or surface attachment, with weakly hydrophilic or even hydrophobic-lipophilic interfacial states; their separation precision is about 5–10 micrometers, continuous operation cycles only 4–12 hours, post-backwash performance recovery 70–80%, and service life 1–3 years. SFM™, by contrast, works through a combined mechanism of hydration-layer interception, interfacial coalescence and physical cell-wall-disruption bacteriostasis, with a separation precision lower limit of 0.45 micrometers, effluent oil content consistently below 5 ppm, continuous operation of 24–48 hours, post-backwash performance recovery of 99.5%, and a service life of over 5 years — a lower full-cycle operation and maintenance cost. From parameters to field results, long life and low consumption are not slogans but verifiable engineering outcomes. For both new-built and upgrading projects, SFM™ can either be embedded directly as a deep-filtration unit into existing process flows or combined with CDFU and CDOF equipment to form a complete oil-removal chain, offering flexible engineering adaptability.
From oilfield produced water to power plant oily wastewater, from domestic to overseas projects, SFM™ is proving with long-term stable performance that it is the preferred filter media for advanced treatment of oily wastewater. Stable compliance, low-consumption operation and recyclable recovered oil are exactly what the transition of industrial wastewater treatment toward green, low-carbon operation calls for.
