Swansea filter could help reduce environmental impact of fracking

Fracking, the hydraulic fracturing process by which shale oil and gas is removed from the ground, uses huge volumes of water. According to Swansea University’s Prof Andrew Barron, a hydraulically fractured well uses more than 5 million gallons of water on average and only 10 to 15 per cent is recovered during the flow back stage.

Currently this recovered water tends to heavily contaminate and often unsuitable for re-use. However, the new membrane, developed in collaboration with researchers from Rice University in the US is claimed to be able to remove more than 90 per cent of hydrocarbons, as well as all bacteria and particulates from contaminated water.

The work by Prof Andrew R Barron and his colleagues turns a ceramic membrane with microscale pores into a superhydrophilic (i.e extremely attracted to water) filter that is claimed to eliminate the problem of fouling. A paper on their research is published in Nature's open-access Scientific Reports.