High Performance Synthetic Sand for Improved Energy Production and Sustainability

Increasing oil and gas production has resulted in significantly increased consumption of frac sand. High quality sand resources are depleting and far away from major oil and gas reservoirs. Also, the production of frac sand requires intensive processing, leading to large CO2 emissions and high costs. The project will use industrial wastes from coal power plant generation to produce a novel synthetic sand with high performance, low CO2 emissions, and low costs. The technology utilizes an innovative low energy consumption production process to fabricate the synthetic sand with desired shape, size, and properties and simultaneously mineralize CO2 to enhance sand performance and sustainability. Phase I work will be conducted to develop low cost and high performance material formulation and establish effective and energy-efficient fabrication process to produce the proposed synthetic sand. The produced synthetic sand will be evaluated according to frac sand specifications to optimize sand performance and production process as well as establish effective quality and process controls. The proposed novel synthetic sand production technology will utilize coal power plant wastes to produce a high performance synthetic sand to reduce industrial waste disposal and mineralize CO2 to enhance oil and gas production and improve energy generation sustainability.