Frac Waste Water Treatment.

What do you mean by fracing? Do you mean fractional distillation?

I think he is referring to the water used for fracturing the formations that the well are drilled into. I worked as a truck driver for a few month in the local oil field and I hauled many tankers of "frac water".

With the oil wells in North Dakota they use clean potable grade water from the public supply systems in and around the local communities. What goes down the wells starts out as clean drinkable water with a some added chemicals to balance its PH and kill off bacteria and a few other things but what comes back out of the well along with the the oil and gas is called "production water" which is very high in assorted dissolved salts and minerals plus any other chemicals or additives that where used during the drilling or well work.

Hi Terry,

Previous CR4 forum on same topic (and coincedentally from the same OP - http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/54443/sodium-sulphate-use-in-water-treatment), from May this year.

In my broader experience in traditional water treatment, I've not head of Sodium Sulfate being used as an additive for treatment of water (although it is used in other processes, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate).

I'm assuming you're talking about Coal Seam Gas, andthe Frac water used to open the seam (fracture the bedrock) and facilitate increased flow of methane to the well head. Interestingly I'm working on a waster water treatment project currently treating the Frac Water from coal seam gas application. I can add the following (which may or may not be useful):

1) Detergents and surfuctants are a significant component (10-30%) of the drilling fluid used to drill the well. It may be an additive in this type of fluid;

2) Sodium Persulfate may be used. This compound is a strong oxidising agent (bleach), and used as a promoter for emulsion polymerisation reactions.

I suspect you are referring to Sodium Persulfate, rather than Sodium Sulfate.

Hope this helps ...