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Research Outline
Prepared for Jesse L. | Delivered March 24, 2020
Removing Unwanted Substances from Fracking Waste
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Goals
To provide an overview of the waste product being produced during the fracking process and to provide the cost associated with removing the polutants from the waste water.
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Early Findings
According to data from a study done by Downstream Strategies, to frack a single well takes
4.3 million gallons of water
on average.
The fracking process involves
three separate stages
that produces different types of pollutants: 1) the well drilling and completion stage, 2) the well stimulation stage, especially in hydraulic fracturing, and 3) the well production stage.
The well drilling and completion stage produces
drilling fluids
(drilling
m
u
d
s
)
,
cuttings
,
and wastewater.
T
h
e
well stimulation stage usually produces
fracturing fluid returns
and wastewater while the final production stage produces waste water plus the final product, usually oil or gas.
T
h
e
fracturing fluid consists of
98 to 99%
water by volume plus 1 to 1.9 vol% of proppants and typically less than 1 vol% of additives. Proppants are small grains of sand or ceramics.
There are many types of chemical additive but the most common ones include biocides,
buffers, breakers,
corrosion inhibitors, crosslinkers, friction reducers, gelling agents, surfactants, and scale inhibitors.
The final wastewater byproduct usually contains
chemicals, heavy metals, excess salts
, carcinogens like benzene and naturally occurring
radioactive materials
. The final wastewater product was also found to contain ammonium and iodide, substances that encourage the formation of toxins like
carcinogenic disinfection byproducts
.
In most
c
a
s
e
s
, wastewater is either treated in wastewater decontamination plants or isolated in specific ponds. However, a paper from August 2017 claimed that the process of decontamination is
very inefficient.
The most common pollutants that were found included surfactants,
p
o
l
y
a
r
o
m
a
t
i
c
hydrocarbons
,
r
a
d
i
o
n
u
c
l
i
d
e
s
, salts, and metals.
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