PuSH - Publication Server of Helmholtz Zentrum München: Quantitative survey and structural classification of hydraulic fracturing chemicals reported in unconventional gas production.

Information

Clues to quality of journals

Open Access Policy of Helmholtz Association 2016

CC Licencences

Publication Metrics

Navigation

Home

Deutsch

EVA: Electronic Publishing

New EVA Application

Research

Advanced Search

Browse by ...

... HMGU-Authors/Consortia

... Organizational Structure

... Journal

... Publication Type

... Research Data

... Arbeitsgruppen

... Publication Year

Publication overview

Statistics

Statistics (last 5 years)

OA Publications

Publish

Submit Publication

Import publication from...

...EVA

Report missing publication

Highlights

Support & Contact

Contact persons

Help

Data protection

Helmholtz Open Science

JANE Journal Estimator

SHERPA/RoMEO

DOAJ

Export:

Text

Endnote (RIS) BIB

BibTeX

Elsner, M. ; Hoelzer, K.

Quantitative survey and structural classification of hydraulic fracturing chemicals reported in unconventional gas production.

Environ. Sci. Technol. 50, 3290-3314 (2016)

Publ. Version/Full Text

Postprint

DOI

PMC

	Open Access Hybrid

Abstract
Metrics
Extra information

Much interest is directed at the chemical structure of hydraulic fracturing (HF) additives in unconventional gas exploitation. To bridge the gap between existing alphabetical disclosures by function / CAS number and emerging scientific contributions on fate and toxicity, we review the structural properties which motivate HF applications, and which determine environmental fate and toxicity. Our quantitative overview relied on voluntary U.S. disclosures evaluated from the FracFocus registry by different sources and on a House of Representatives ("Waxman") list. Out of over 1000 reported substances, classification by chemistry yielded succinct subsets able to illustrate the rationale of their use, and physicochemical properties relevant for environmental fate, toxicity and chemical analysis. While many substances were non-toxic, frequent disclosures also included notorious groundwater contaminants like petroleum hydrocarbons (solvents), precursors of endocrine disruptors like nonylphenols (non-emulsifiers), toxic propargyl alcohol (corrosion inhibitor), tetramethyl ammonium (clay stabilizer), biocides or strong oxidants. Application of highly oxidizing chemicals, together with occasional disclosures of putative delayed acids and complexing agents (i.e., compounds designed to react in the subsurface) suggests that relevant transformation products may be formed. To adequately investigate such reactions, available information is not sufficient, but instead a full disclosure of HF additives is necessary.

Impact Factor

Scopus SNIP

Web of Science
Times Cited

Scopus
Cited By

Altmetric

5.393

1.718