Improving the quality of silica sand as a proppant for hydraulic fracking industry purposes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17794/rgn.2025.1.11Keywords:
hydraulic fracking industry, proppants specifications, silica sand, attrition scrubbingAbstract
A technological silica sand sample that belongs to "Egypt's Future Quarries", south west Cairo, was investigated as a proppant for the hydraulic fracking industry. The sample showed encouraging physical and mechanical characteristics, yet it was still in need of improving its grade to match the International Organization for Standardization specifications. After careful reading of the microscopy and mineralogy investigation of the head sample, a simple and cheap beneficiation flowsheet was suggested including sieve classification and an attrition scrubbing technique using a 50-liter capacity “Denver” machine. The results showed appreciable grade improvement in the attrition sand. An increase in silica content from 90.10% to 98.15% SiO2 at the expense of alumina and iron oxides %’s by 79% and 63%, respectively. This grade improvement subsequently led to notable improvement in turbidity and acid solubility measures and hence, transformed the sand sample from being unacceptable for the oil and gas industry to a sand product with acceptable specifications for this industry. The results also showed improvement in the crushability resistance and grain sphericity and roundness measures with ratios reaching 24.06%, 19.11% and 16.72%, respectively. In addition, particle size distribution of the attrition sand showed more consistency, which is desirable for the fracking industry.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Suzan S. Ibrahim, Tawfik Refaat Boulos, Sameh Abdullah, Abdullah Elbendary, Mohamed Khalifa, Ayman Hagrass
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons-BY
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
In agreeing this form, you certify that:
- You read the ethical codex of the RGN zbornik available at journal web.
- You submitted work is your original work, and has not previously been published and does not include any form of plagiarism.
- You own copyright in the submitted work, and are therefore permitted to assign the licence to publish to RGN zbornik.
- Your submitted work contains no violation of any existing copyright or other third party right or any material of an obscene, libellous or otherwise unlawful nature.
- You have obtained permission for and acknowledged the source of any illustrations, diagrams or other material included in the work of which you are not the copyright owner.
- You have taken due care to ensure the accuracy of the work, and that, to the best of your knowledge, there are no false statements made within it.
- All co-authors of this submitted work are aware of, and in agreement with, the terms of this licence and that the submitted manuscript has been approved by these authors.
Publication licence
You retain copyright in your submitted work, according to journal license policy (CC-BY). By signing this form you agree that RGN zbornik may publish it under the publication licence. In summary the licence allows the following:
Anyone is free:
- To copy, distribute, display, and perform the work.
- To make derivative works.
Under the following conditions:
- The original author must always be given credit.
- The work may not be used for commercial purposes.
- If the work is altered, transformed, or built upon, the resulting work may only be distributed under a licence identical to this one.
Exceptions to the licence
In addition to publishing the work printed under the above licence, RGN zbornik will also enable the work to be visible online.
The journal editorial can change the licence rules anytime but it cannot retroactively restrict author(s) rights.
