UTSA, Southwest Research find a new way to clean frack water

The University of Texas at San Antonio and the Southwest Research Institute say they have found an inexpensive way to treat the water that flows back to the surface after hydraulic fracturing.

A team of researchers used a plant matter called biochar to remove impurities from the flowback water.

UTSA and Southwest Research Institute say it’s a low-cost method that could help address the issue of the millions of gallons of water use and disposal – per well – in new oil and gas fields such as the Eagle Ford Shale.

Hydraulic fracturing pumps a mix of water and chemicals at high pressure to break the shale. Then sand is added to the fluid in increasing amounts to hold open the fissures, letting oil and gas flow up the well to the surface.

Some of that water returns to the surface – called flowback – although much of it is lost in the shale formation. And the rock itself often produces brackish water alongside oil and gas – called production water.

Oil and gas operators have to do something with all of that water because it’s contaminated, and it’s often pumped down a disposal well.

Biochar- made from things such as wood chips, paper, leaves and soybean or corn oil – is a stable charcoal-like solid that attracts and holds water. It’s able to absorb hydrocarbons, organics, biocides and some inorganic metal ions.

The research team included UTSA mechanical engineering professor Zhigang Feng and Maoqi Feng, senior research engineer at Southwest Research Institute’s chemistry and chemical engineering division, as well as UTSA students Steven Cooks, Carlos Mendez, Joshua Moran and Silvia Briseño Murguia.

They spent a year creating biochar and testing it on water samples. Biochar is made by taking agricultural waste and heating it to high temperatures in an oxygen-deprived environment.

The $200,000 research initiative was funded by the Connect program, an annual UTSA-SwRI joint funding initiative.

Southwest Research Institute is a private, nonprofit research organization based in San Antonio.

For those who want to see a video showing how horizontal drilling and fracking is done, Northern Gas and Oil has a great one. It’s 6 minutes.

It includes a visual piece on how fresh water aquifers are protected from contamination.

http://www.northernoil.com/drilling-video

It's deja vu all over again. I was working with this 30 years ago. Economics were tilted way negative then and are not exactly rosy now unless unless there is some eureka magic gasifier hardware that is part of the development. In addition, the energy balance and ash content are wacky because of the water content of the biomass types and the dirt load. Transportation cost is the kiss of death. Left out of the discussion is the relative efficiency of this “biochar” compared to conventional premium “biochar” such as coconut shell activated carbon.

At its best, activated carbon of all types has had a low holding capacity. This variety of activated carbon is going have a rough time economically unless there is an exceptional increase in capacity.

Southwest Research Institute is an first class organization and I did some work with them 25 years ago on treatment of a different variety of produced water the results of which filtered into improvements first in offshore operations. The devil is likely in some details not mentioned having to do with federal funding in the alternative energy arena. The Feds have been pressing for and funding gasification work for really off the wall applications that do not have any realistic probability of success.

I had better quit my rattling now. Hehehe.

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