Researchers of Duke University found a way to recycle wastewater produced from hydraulic fracturing or ''fracking'', reducing its radioactivity and making it clean enough to be used in drilling new wells.
To do so, the researchers collected and mixed together 26 samples of fracking wastewater from the Marcellus shale with acid drainage from mines and examined their chemical and radioactive levels after two days. They found that within the first ten hours, the metals and some of the radium had combined and become solid, as expected. The solids which contain radioactive materials could be removed at a hazardous waste landfill leaving water clean enough to be used in other fracking operations. "I’m not sure it resolves all the problems, but it can have some improvement," Avner Vengosh, the Duke Professor who oversaw the project, said. Although it seems a significant progress as Vengosh mentioned, some concerns have arisen for the possible consequences in the field. "That water can get spilled. That water can get into a shallow aquifer. There are many other considerations." said Tad Patzek, chairman and professor of the petroleum engineering department at the University of Texas. The research was published in December in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, but further field testing is required according to Vengosh.
See also: "Geothermal energy using the 'fracking' process"
Source: FuelFix.com
An emerging water cleaning technology is used in Midland Texas, to process heavily contaminated wate...
The area of Youngstown, Ohio had never experienced earthquakes, up until 2011 where about 109 m...
A recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences points out that dri...
Alta Rock Company, based in Seattle, shows how hydraulic fracturing can be used not only as a way to...
A new study suggests new guidelines in order to mitigate the earthquake risk triggered by hydrauli...
New study shows that the storage of water produced from oil and gas exploitation using hydrauli...
A new video released last Friday highlights new research funded by the National Science Foundation t...
A newly released report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has for the first time attempted to e...
According to a new study, geothermal drilling in deep layers is a technological challenge but it is...