Electrodialysis Membranes May Lead To Cleaner Hydraulic Fracturing

November 5, 2014- Although successful in helping to fulfill our energy needs, fracking (hydraulic fracturing) has a number of negative impacts on the environment, including how the process leaves behind extremely salty "produced water".

But now researchers at MIT and King Faud University of Petroleum and Minerals are looking at how to soften the blow using a series of filters involving electrodialysis to pull salt through membranes.

In an online post, "Scientists Find A Way To Make Fracking Less Horrible For The Environment," Engadget.com writes that this wouldn't make the water drinkable, but it would be reusable — and that, in turn, would reduce or even eliminate the need for fresh water beyond an initial supply. "Oil and gas wells wouldn't deprive local communities of nearly as much drinking or farming water, and they wouldn't have to dispose of quite so many contaminated liquids," Engadget.com writes.

The solution hasn't had a real world test, in particular to determine the effects of oil and gas upon the membranes.

Electrodialysis is thought of as being advantageous for relatively low-salinity water such as the brackish, shallow groundwater found in many locations which have a salinity around one-tenth that of seawater.

But the new analysis shows that electrodialysis also turns out to be economically viable at the other end of the salinity spectrum; a good thing, because produced water can have three to six times the salinity of seawater.

If successful, the new process will be used to upgrade existing wells and save areas that are already suffering from water shortages, like Texas.

"While this won't reduce humanity's dependence on oil and help with the transition to clean energy, it could minimize the damage done," Engadget.com writes.

Read the MIT News account of the study, "Getting The Salt Out," here.


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