Top of Page

PSU scientists start company to convert mining waste into aid for hydraulic fracturing

on
Two Penn State scientists have found a better way to coax oil and natural gas out of the ground – and it involves ingredients that are normally thrown out.

Dr. John Hellmann, a professor of materials science and engineering, and Dr. Barry Scheetz, a professor of materials, civil and nuclear engineering, recently formed a State College company called Nittany Extraction Technologies, based on their technique for making materials used in oil and gas drilling.

More specifically, the scientists are dealing with proppants – so named because they prop open cracks in rock formations like the Marcellus Shale that underlies much of Pennsylvania. This is important to the process of hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping pressurized water into rock so the gas can come out.

Proppants, usually sand, keep the cracks open. But Hellmann says the problem is that sand breaks into shards so it’s less effective than manmade proppants. Other common proppants are made of bauxite or a type of clay called kaolin, but these are increasingly expensive and decreasingly available. So Scheetz and Hellmann spent a dozen years searching for waste that could be made into a proppant. They settled on mine tailings, a term for the crushed rock left over after mining.

“These are materials that we specifically targeted because they were going into landfills,” Hellmann says. “These materials are available in large enough quantities that it should be sustainable.

Nittany Extraction Technologies is perfecting the process of making proppants from mine tailings. The next step is to test it in the field, which Hellmann expects to happen this fall.

Source: John Hellmann, Nittany Extraction Technologies
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen

Energy, Higher Ed, Manufacturing, News
Top