1. Ultrasonic cleaning recycling solution
Patricia Pena
Ben Knecht
Chris Thomas
Adam Ferreira
What are drill cuttings?
Refinery Process
Drill cuttings is what you get when you drill
They consist of soils, rock, water, chemicals, and possible radioactive materials.
Chevron is currently loading it into trucks and dumping them into landfills
They need us to figure out a way to repurpose and clean the drill cuttings.
Market Potential
How does Ultrasonic Cleaning work?
Main target: Local Government
Second target: private companies
Sell the clean drill cuttings for infrastructure such as: streets, creation of cement, etc.
Current situation
• “Chevron has opted to process and recycle drill cuttings on site as a more effective and energy efficient method of waste management.”
o TWMA Oil and Gas Waste Management
• The 2007 Chevron Offshore Drilling Fluid and Cuttings Environmental Protection Standard restricts the types of drill cuttings and retained fluids that can be discharged offshore
• Currently Chevron uses the Thermo-Mechanical Cuttings Cleaner (TCC) to process
• Significant Footprint: Enormity of Operations/ Buffer Storage for Cuttings
drill cuttings and segregate excess oil and drilling fluid
Ultrasonic cleaning uses air bubbles created by high frequency sound waves to remove contaminants from a solid object in aqueous solution. The high pressure waves induce strong forces on small particulates and contaminants to clean the surface. The solution can be pure water or a mixture of chemicals suited to cleaning the specific object.
In the ultrasonic cleaner prototype pictured above, the device uses a set of ultrasonic transducers to agitate a solution to clean contaminated drill cuttings suspended in a mesh container. The powerful sound waves stir up the particulates to remove them from the surface of the rock, resulting in clean drill cuttings. The clean cuttings can then be repurposed, and the solution treated to remove contaminants. This prototype is only a scale model of a process that can be magnified to clean hundreds of pounds of rock at once.
Environmental impact of Ultrasonic Cleaning
We will be implementing the 3R cycle: recycle, reduce, and ruse.
Instead of throwing the waste to land fills we will sell them in this way we will get rid of the wastes and at the same time gain profit for the company
Ethical Implications
Evaluation
• Exhaustion of Natural Resources for profit at the stake of human health
• “From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracking activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources”
- Major Finding, EPA Report: Hydraulic Fracturing Drinking Water Assessment
• Radium contaminants carcinogenic and radioactive.
• “Public exposure to many chemicals involved in energy development is expected to increase over the next few years, with uncertain consequences”
- Valerie Brown, Science Writer/Environmental Journalist
• Long term exposure through inhalation or ingestion increases risk of developing lymphoma, bone cancer, leukemia, and aplastic anemia
• John Poister, a spokesperson for the DEP (PA Department of Environmental Protection) lied in a statement claiming the DEP was certain drill cuttings were properly disposed. The DEP did not know where rejected loads are disposed.
We deiced the drill cuttings because it has a large environmental impact.
We chose ultrasonic cleaning. It was a very safe and cheap way of cleaning the drill cutting.
Our primary buyers where the local government because they always have the need of stone like this.
Secondary buyers where private constructors because they use stone quite a bit also.