Refining of sand to remove impurities
OwnerRussell Wynn Driverinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Sand containing impurities that weaken its suitability as a proppant in well boreholes can be refined by the process of (1) drying the sand to remove moisture, (2) grinding the sand in a jet mill to create particle-on-particle contact of the sand and impurity grains, and (3) removing pulverized impurities from the sand by blowing the sand with air or by processing the sand in a mineral separator. The sand can then be used in a borehole as a proppant and in fracking. The sand can be screened at any point in the process to separate the sand particles by grain size. The refined sand can be coated with a resin after the removal of pulverized impurities.
Claims5
A process for refining sand comprising the steps of:
- 1) drying the sand to remove moisture in the sand;
- 2) grinding the sand;
- 3) removing pulverized impurities by one of the following steps:
- a) flowing a stream of air into the sand to blow out the impurities;
- b) processing the sand in a mineral separator;
- c) flowing a stream of air into the sand and then processing the sand in a mineral separator;
- and
- d) processing the sand in a mineral separator and then flowing a stream of air into the sand.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.