Dallas, Texas -- A Dow Chemical and Preferred Sands co-developed polyurethane innovation for the improvement of fracking economies won the CPI Innovation Award 2014.
As previously reported at UTECH-polyurethane.com, the innovation helps maintain cracks that are opened up for gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing, according to the winning firms.
Dow's Terraforce formulation coats the surface of sand particles which are pumped into the well to keep small fractures in rock open.
Preferred Sands ceo Michael O'Neil explained that basic fracking technology has not changed since the 1940s. That technology involves pumping mixture of sand in a solution that contains partly-reacted phenol-formaldehyde resin into the well.
This has several disadvantages he explained. Firstly, some of the formaldehyde remains unreacted and comes back to the surface, he said. Secondly, he added that the phenol-formaldehyde resin is brittle and while it may coat the sand particles it often breaks and allows the sand to fall and travel back along the line to the drill shaft. Sand in the drill shaft, builds up, slows production and can lead to blockages and lost production, he added.
Juan Medina, director of new business development at Dow Polyurethanes, said the Dow material had a degree of ductility that prevented it from cracking and caused the particles of sand to stick into the underground fractures more effectively.
Using the Terraforce system means that there is no need to scrub formaldehyde out of the off gas, the formulation of the proppant becomes simpler and productivity increases, the firms told the judges. "You do not get more [gas], but you get it faster, " said O'Neil.
The product was also shortlisted as one of the 100 most influential inventions for 2013 by R&D Magazine.
Other finalists in the CPI awards were BASF’s Infinergy foam product and Novomer’s Converge waste CO2 to polyols technology.
