Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing technology coupled with horizontal well advancements has played a major role in the development of unconventional oil and gas resources in the USA. Despite the large economic and resource potentials, public concerns have been raised over the fast growth of the US shale developments. This work shows the trend of fracturing chemicals used in the USA from 2012 to 2019 using the FracFocus database. The results showed that mostly there is one dominating chemical ingredient that is used for a specific purpose. Corrosion inhibitors were among the largest purpose group with undisclosed chemicals. Some major chemicals were “generally recognized as safe” by the US food and drug administration to be used in food additives or food contact substances. Besides, the findings showed that 93% of fracturing fluid in the FracFocus database is water, 3% proppant, and 4% other chemicals. This work will serve as a guideline for future work related to the FracFocus database. Furthermore, this work can be used as a baseline that provides the amount of each chemical used in hydraulic fracturing in the USA as well as addressing the potential toxicity and tracking of environmentally friendly fracturing chemicals.
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Alkinani, H., Dunn-Norman, S., Al-Hameedi, A.T. et al. Analyzing the usage patterns of hydraulic fracturing chemicals in the USA: a temporal and purpose-based approach. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 21, 3957–3972 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05249-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-023-05249-1