relation: http://d-scholarship-dev.library.pitt.edu/18244/
title: Optimization of treatment options to enable the use of Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) for hydraulic fracturing in Marcellus Shale
creator: Zheng, Xuan
description: Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) is a promising make-up water source for hydraulic fracturing in Marcellus Shale as it is often available in the vicinity of planned natural gas wells and can be used to reduce fresh water utilization. When mixing AMD with Marcellus Shale produced water, the high sulfate concentration in AMD could precipitate a significant amount of barium and strontium in produced water as a pre-treatment for produced water prior to reuse for hydraulic fracturing. In order to promote the recycling of AMD and produced water, it is necessary to optimize treatment processes to remove solids created by mixing these waters.    Conventional coagulation/flocculation process was optimized with respect to mixing/settling time, coagulant dosage, pH, sludge handling and clarifier design using two different Marcellus Shale flowback waters and actual AMD that is available in their vicinity. This conventional process is compared against ballasted flocculation that has smaller footprint and may be more suitable as a mobile treatment system. The mixing ratio of flowback water and AMD was studied in order to meet potential effluent quality requirement for sulfate of 100 mg/L that may be imposed by gas companies and was compared to chemical equilibrium calculations by Phreeqc and MINEQL models.     The effluent quality from the conventional and ballasted flocculation processes are comparable with turbidity below 5 NTU despite the fact that the contact time required for the ballasted flocculation is just 10 min compared to 1 hour required for conventional treatment process.  Careful optimization of the AMD : Marcellus Shale Produced water mixing ratio is needed to ensure effluent quality with respect to sulfate concentration. The solids produced by ballasted flocculation had better settling characteristic and higher sludge density than the solids produced by conventional process.  
date: 2013-06-27
type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
type: PeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
language: en
identifier: http://d-scholarship-dev.library.pitt.edu/18244/1/zhengx_etd2013.pdf
identifier:   Zheng, Xuan  (2013) Optimization of treatment options to enable the use of Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) for hydraulic fracturing in Marcellus Shale.  Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.    (Unpublished)