Back to results
US 12,115,535 B1Granted
Methods and systems for reducing turbidity of hydraulic fracturing sands
AssigneePropflow, LLC
InventorsJeremy Britt Mitchell, Christopher Shane Martin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for reducing the turbidity of as-mined sand comprising adding water to the as-mined sand to increase its moisture content to between about 5% and about 40% by weight, mixing the sand and water, piling the wet sand on the ground, allowing the sand to rest for a predetermined period of between about 12 hours and about 3 days, then harvesting less than all of the sand from the pile as reduced turbidity sand.
Claims20
A method of reducing the turbidity of as-mined sand, comprising the steps of:
- mining sand having an as-mined turbidity of more than 250 FTU or its equivalent;
- wetting the as-mined sand with water having a turbidity of at least half of the as-mined turbidity of the sand;
- creating a pile of the wetted sand;
- allowing the pile of wetted sand to rest for a predetermined period of more than 24 hours;
- harvesting after the predetermined period a portion of the sand from the pile, the harvested sand having a turbidity less than the turbidity of the as-mined sand.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.