Fracking & Water Purification

What is Fracking?

•Hydraulic fracturing is an oil and natural gas production technique that involves the injection of millions of gallons of water, plus chemicals and sand, underground at very high pressure in order to create fractures in the underlying geology to allow natural gas to escape. It also is called hydrofracturing, hydrofracking or more commonly known as fracking.
•The sand is used to keep the fractures open and allow oil or gas to flow more efficiently. Hydraulic fracturing is commonly used in many types of geologic formations such as coal beds, shale plays, and previously-drilled wells to further stimulate production.
fracking

Hydrofracturing and the Impact on Your Clean Water

Does Fracking Really Threaten Drinking Water?

In many places, hydraulic fracturing takes place on private property, even in backyards where children play or where a drinking water well is located. Depending on local circumstances, property owners have little or no leverage in determining where hydraulic fracturing operations may take place. Hydraulic fracturing frequently necessitates drilling through drinking water aquifers, exposing such aquifers to the risk of contamination from the tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals typically employed in a single fracturing operation or from naturally-occurring hazardous substances.

How Safe is Fracking?

•Hydraulic fracturing fluids can contain a variety of toxic chemicals such as diesel fuel, acids, and acetone. Though industry proponents of the practice assert that only a small fraction of the fluid volume used in any fracturing operation consists of chemicals, because of the large volume of fluids needed for each “frack job”—sometimes millions of gallons—the chemical components of fracturing fluid can amount to tens of thousands of gallons.
•Hundreds of different types of chemicals are used in fracturing operations, many of which can cause serious health problems — some are also known carcinogens. After hydraulic fracturing takes place, both the waste fluid that is brought back to the surface as “flowback” as well as the fluids that remain underground can contain toxic substances that may come from the fracturing fluids.

How can Dyna-Aqua™ Help?

Dyna-Aqua™ combines the two most powerful mechanisms for capturing the greatest amount of contaminants from surface water. By impregnating cotton with specialized alumina,
Dyna-Aqua™ is able to bind up to 3 gallons of contaminants for every pound of cotton. This is more than any other method in the marketplace. Through the adsorbent properties of alumina, volatile organic compounds can be removed before they make clean-up crews sick.

•Works through the combination of absorption (cotton) and adsorption (alumina)
•Alumina will also allow for absorption of the volatile organic compounds that make people sick
•Product dimensions: 6 mm thick, 10 feet wide,
and rolls of 100-1000 feet.

Dyna-Aqua™ for Environmental Clean Up

Below are just some of the applications for which specialized sorbents are manufactured by DAI.

•Removal of oil from sea water
•PCB removal
•Lead removal
•Uranium removal
•Copper removal
•Pesticide removal
•Bio-mass clean-up
•Removal of dyes or color from water
•Fluoride removal

Dyna-Aqua™ Product Line

The Dyna-Aqua™ line of specialized alumina oxides represents an extraordinary breakthrough in the removal of toxic metals and other toxic materials from water.

•Dyna-Aqua™ Uranium
•Dyna-Aqua™ Lead
•Dyna-Aqua™ Copper
•Dyna-Aqua™ Fluoride
•Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM
Click here to learn more about our Dyna Aqua Line

Does Fracking Really Threaten Drinking Water?

In many places, hydraulic fracturing takes place on private property, even in backyards where children play or where a drinking water well is located. Depending on local circumstances, property owners have little or no leverage in determining where hydraulic fracturing operations may take place. Hydraulic fracturing frequently necessitates drilling through drinking water aquifers, exposing such aquifers to the risk of contamination from the tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals typically employed in a single fracturing operation or from naturally-occurring hazardous substances.

 Dyna-Aqual Real World Applications

Sampling in Louisiana’s Inshore
Waters Indicates Presence of Crude Oil (cont’d)

The cloth collected high concentrations of these compounds ranging from 14-233 mg l-1. When standardized by the estimated volume of seawater sampled, the range of concentrations fell to 0.002-0.033 mg l-1. Considering the circumstances, this was not logical. NOAA’s concentrations were reported from in an offshore environment just E-SE of the spill site on May 30, 2010 – 5.5 wks into the spill. One would expect those concentrations to be much higher – since they were sampling down-current of the spill (with respect to major long-shelf currents) while it was still active. Dr. Sammarco’s samples were taken up-current of the spill site and 5 wks after the well had been capped. Concentrations reported in this study may also be considered to be conservative, based on the mode of sampling (non-forced/flow-through filtering). This, in turn, indicates that NOAA’s numbers would appear to be lower than expected for the period of their sampling and in comparison to the data here. In addition, underwater video footage taken by Mr. Scott A. Porter on May 7, 2010 shows that the dispersant may have been effective at submerging the oil but was not 100% effective at dissolving it, causing high concentrations of it to be patchily distributed in shallow water. Point-sampling using Niskin bottles to sample seawater when the oil is distributed in this fashion could easily have missed these patches. The sampling technique we used here is broad-scale, cumulative, and is probably better suited to provide representative data of actual concentrations under these circumstances.

This Dyna-Aqua™ Oil Sorb’s material high sensitivity to petroleum hydrocarbons makes it well suited for a variety of purposes, including surface oil adsorption, fill for adsorbent booms – replacing dated absorbent ones, adsorption of sunken oil concentrated at depth, environmental monitoring, industrial clean-up, and estuarine filters. This also includes Corexit®.

DAI Provides an Optimal Solution

With the widespread adoption of hydraulic fracturing, the oil and gas industry’s requirements for water resources are higher today than ever. More and more, the industry is looking to water as a valuable commodity rather than just a cost.

In a move to minimize environmental impacts, reduce transportation waste, and control costs, DAI is making efforts to treat and reuse water that was previously considered waste.

DAI’s customized alumina products can provide an optimum solution for removing pollutants from the wells that result from shale natural gas drilling, something that would substantially reduce the downside of drilling in this country. It would not only allow the US to retain its market share lead, but provide for safer operations throughout the world.