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OU technology recycles fracking wastewater
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Trembly
ATHENS
Injection wells may not be the only way in which wastewater from the hydraulic-fracturing process, or fracking, is handled.
Jason Trembly, an Ohio University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is developing technology that could treat fracking wastewater on site.
Typically, the hydraulic-fracturing process involves a mixture of water, chemicals and sand shot into shale rocks thousands of feet below the ground to release natural gas and oil. Some of the wastewater comes to the surface as flowback that is transported and disposed of at an injection well.
Trembly’s technology could change that.
The OU professor said the goal is to find a sustainable relationship between the use of freshwater for the fracking process.
“We’re going to have to be much more sustainable in our waste- water,” Trembly said. The benefit of reusing and recycling wastewater would make the fracking industry more cost-effective, he added.
The treatment process starts with technologies that apply low-pressure, ultraviolet and water-softening methods that rectify some bacteria and chemicals in the water. The wastewater is then pumped into a reactor powered by gas from the well, which undergoes high pressures and temperature. The water takes on properties of both a gas and a liquid.
This is when water is in a super critical state, Trembly said.
The contaminants either solidify or gasify, which leaves clean water.
Trembly said most of the chemicals and the water can be reused in the fracking process. Chemicals that are removed from the wastewater potentially can be applied in the medical, culinary and construction industries in uses such as baby diapers and a road de-icing agent, Trembly said.
Trembly said some wastewater can be untreatable and that would have to be disposed of in an injection well.
“We don’t look at this technology as a replacement to injection wells,” he said. “Injection wells are always going to be needed.”
The project is in the prototype phase that can produce one barrel of treated wastewater per day. Trembly said funding is being sought to finish the project with the technology producing 3,000 pounds per day for commercial use.
He is working with the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology of OU. ISEE is partenered with Hess Corp.; Aquionics, which specializes in UV water treatment; and the Ohio Gas Association.
The project is expected to be completed within 18 to 24 months, he said.
A spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said any company that wants to reuse or recycle fracking wastewater needs to receive a state permit.