Analytical methods for various in-field measurements of methane and arsenic in hydraulic fracturing operations

Jack and I were invited to give this talk in the American Chemical Society Division of Energy  and Fuels #ENFL Technical Program at the Fall National Meeting in San Francisco, CA 2014. Learn more about attending this conference here.

Session: Advances in analytical methods for petroleum upstream applications

Date: Tuesday August 12, 2014 1:30pm

Title: Analytical methods for various in-field measurements of methane and arsenic in hydraulic fracturing operations

Presenting Author: Jennifer Maclachlan, Dr. Jack Driscoll, PID Analyzers, LLC, 2 Washington Circle, Suite 4, Sandwich, MA

Abstract Body: There are occupational and environmental health and safety issues related to petroleum upstream applications such as those associated with hydraulic fracking including chemical exposure of workers during hydraulic fracturing operations as well as the wastewater, methane leaks from fractures in the shale and leaks into the ecosystem including but not limited to groundwater, marshes, drinking water. In this paper, we will illustrate how our analyzers can achieve the following applications: methane in air, methane leaks from the shale, methane in water using a static headspace method, hydrocarbon contaminants in the hydraulically pumped water, arsenic in the water since this is a common pollutant in shale and the 20th most common element in the earth's crust and product analysis: the BTU content of the gas needs to be determined. We will discuss the analytical methods and various in-field instrumentation for monitoring these problems utilizing our portable GC-FID, our low cost hand-held FID which is ideal for leak detection and our RandD100 award winning arsenic in water analyzer. A modification of our portable gas chromatograph configuration results in a technique for measuring the product gases produced by fracking. An analytical method for each of the methane applications as well as the arsenic in water application will be described.