1. Solidification of Wastewater
Adam Ruggiero, Aniket Patel, Jonathan Rogers, Nick Jarostchuk
DEM Project 2: Chevron & Hydraulic Fracturing
Chevron
-Chevron is an all-purpose energy company. It strives to be the global energy company most admired for its people, performance, and partnership
-The company aims to provide safe energy products that sustain global economic growth and human development
-One area in which Chevron holds major operations is in oil extraction, through a process called fracking.
The Problem
Fracking- the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rock, so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas
Wastewater- Wastewater is a produced from fracking. It contains many harmful chemicals such as toluene. Currently, wastewater is disposed of via evaporation. The problem with this is that when harmful chemicals are evaporated into the environment, they contaminate the air, rain, and water sources.
Customer Needs
Need a way to chemically treat wastewater so that its environmentally safer or can be used as a marketable product
Solution must be
Safe
Profitable
Effective
Our Idea
-Inspiration/ Motivation
Nuclear power plants often solidify nuclear waste so that it can be more easily and safely disposed of. Our idea is based off this practice. Since wastewater has radioactive material, we want to solidify and filter these harmful contents of the water.
-Mission Statement:
We plan to devise a system to introduce chemicals to the wastewater that serve as binding agents and solidify the harmful materials. In doing this, the hydraulic fracking industry will be able to reduce cost of liquid transport of waste water and improve company image.
-How It Works:
Isolates harmful materials (i.e. heavy metals, toxic compounds and materials, etc) in solid form from the water, so that nontoxic water can evaporate while solid forms can be removed without evaporating.
-Benefits:
Avoid contamination of the environment
Reduce transportation costs of removing liquid wastewater
The water treatment industries improves upon its business & techniques
-Implementation:
Using storage tanks to hold the chemical solution containing x, until it is applied to the wastewater solution. After the reaction solution is applied, the solid waste material will be removed via filters, while the remaining liquid solution will be taken off-site to its respective water treatment facility.
Prototype
Since the project involves chemical reactions in terms of solidifying waste material in water, our prototype was a model representing the process of our idea. This experiment was a simulation to determine and mimick how the concpet would perform in similar, real-world situations.
Test Results
The overall testing/ prototyping was extremely successful as we were able to achieve our goal of removing the precipitate from the solution after adding the reactants to the solution. After adding the CH3COOH to the milk solution to form a dispersed precipitate on the middle and bottom layers of the solution. The formation of the precipitate allowed us to extract the larger particles as a solid material using a large-gauge filter. The resulting effect was a significantly cleaner liquid and a significant volume decrease (approx. 10 fluid oz). This experiment gave us an estimated volume decrease 40%. This implies that up to 40% of the mass in the fracking wastewater will be potentially extracted before transport, ergo significantly reducing the liquid waste removal cost.
Feasibility
It currently costs Chevron approximately $7 per barrel of wastewater to dispose of the waste properly
If Chevron were to use the solidification process, it would likely cost much more per barrel generated due to cost of chemicals, treatment process, and necessary safety procedures involving the handling of chemical waste. Billions of dollars are spent annually by countries to handle nuclear waste.
Conclusion
Our project provides Chevron with a more environmentally friendly way to handle wastewater. The solution is effective and ethical. However, the cost associated with carrying out the operation as well as ensuring safety procedures could reach very large amounts. Therefore, it ultimately needs to be decided whether the financial cost is worth the environmental benefits provided by the solidification process.
Solidification of Wastewater

2. Works Cited/ References:
file:///C:/Users/AJP6128/Downloads/Radioactive%20Waste%20Solidification.PDF
Brownstein, M., Columbo, P, and Dole, L, "Radwaste Solidification" presented at the ASME Radwaste Short Course,
American Society ofMechanical Engineers, "Radioactive Waste Technology," Chapters 8 and 9, New York, 1986
Chevron’s wastewater treatment techniques. Also what is in the wastewater in parts per billion/million
Chevron.com
European Commision, Chemical composition of fracking wastewater.pdf)
Northstarrecycling.com
oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Breakthrough-in-Fracking-Wastewater-Cleanup.html (Slide 2)
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MARTIN BROWNSTEIN (1991). RADIOACTIVE WASTE SOLIDIFICATION [PDF}
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graphic.com/environment/global-warming/acid-rain-overview/ (Slide 5)
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