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Particular pollutants, human health risk and ecological risk of oil-based drilling fluid: a case study of Fuling shale gas field

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Abstract

Samples of new oil-based drilling fluid (NOBDF) and circulating oil-based drilling fluid (COBDF) in Chongqing were tested and analyzed to evaluate the possible impact of oil-based drilling fluid (OBDF) on human health and ecological environment. Organic matter, metals, and naturally occurring radionuclide materials (NORMs) in OBDF samples were analyzed and determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, high-performance liquid chromatography, PANalytical Axios Fast XRF spectrometer, and gamma ray spectrometer. The results revealed that the contents of trace metals and NORMs in OBDF were less, which would not cause local ecological risk or health risk to the drilling crew. However, the concentrations of various aromatics analyzed in OBDF were very high, which was easy to pose serious environmental and health hazards. There were 8 aromatic hydrocarbons (AHs) in NOBDF and 15 AHs in COBDF. And the total carcinogenic risk value of each aromatic hydrocarbon was far greater than 10–4, which belonged to an unacceptable level. In addition, the inhalation pathway seemed to be the most significant source of carcinogenic risk, accounting for 99% of the total carcinogenic risk. Meanwhile, it is recommended to equip drilling workers with gas masks and develop all-oil biodiesel drilling fluid.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by Chongqing technological innovation and application development project (Grant No. cstc2018jszx-zdyfxmx0011) and Chongqing Natural Science Foundation project (Grant No. cstc2019jcyj-msxmx0651). Thanks go to Dr. Xu Han and the reviewers for their valuable opinions, which greatly improved the quality of the paper.

Funding

This research was supported by “Study on raw material substitution technology for monitoring and evaluation of drilling cuttings landfill tank and collaborative disposal of landfill body cement kiln” (Grant No. cstc2019jcyj-msxmX0651).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronics and Internet of Things, Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering, Shapingba, Chongqing, 400000, China

    Deming Xiong

  2. School of Rail Transit and Aviation Service, Chongqing Industry Polytechnic College, Chongqing, 400074, China

    Xu Han

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  1. Deming Xiong
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  2. Xu Han
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Contributions

DX: Framework design and experiments, data and relevant mechanism analysis, writing-original draft, writing-review, revised and editing. XH: Assisting with research, experiments and data analysis.

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Correspondence to Deming Xiong.

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Nobody participated in the human or animal experiment.

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Any experimental research on animals should follow the internationally recognized guidelines. However, in this study, we did not conduct any human or animal experiments, so we do not need the moral consent of the relevant departments.

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Xiong, D., Han, X. Particular pollutants, human health risk and ecological risk of oil-based drilling fluid: a case study of Fuling shale gas field. Environ Geochem Health 45, 981–995 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-022-01259-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-022-01259-z

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