Effort earns grant from the National Science
Foundation’s Partnerships for Innovation Program
Minneapolis/St. Paul — Fracking, the use of hydraulic pressure to
release natural gas and oil from shale, has the potential to meet
energy demands with U.S. resources and stimulate the economy.
However, the practice also carries possible environmental and public
health risks, most notably water contamination.
A University of Minnesota research team is addressing this challenge
by developing innovative biotechnology to purify fracking
wastewater. Headed by Larry Wackett, a professor in the College of
Biological Sciences, the team includes Alptekin Aksan, professor in
the College of Science and Engineering, and Michael Sadowsky,
professor in the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource
Sciences.
The effort has earned a new $600,000 grant from the National Science
Foundation’s Partnerships for Innovation (NSF-PFI) program, which
pairs academic researchers with companies to transfer academic
knowledge to the private sector and produce innovative technologies
that benefit the public. This is the first NSF-PFI grant awarded in
Minnesota. Wackett, Aksan and Sadowksy, as well as CBS Dean Robert
Elde, are co-investigators. Elde’s role is to lead interaction
between the researchers and the companies. If the project is
successful, the team will be eligible for additional NSF funding.
The three scientists, all members of the university’s BioTechnology
Institute, are using naturally-occurring bacteria embedded in porous
silica materials to biodegrade contaminants in fracking wastewater,
a technology they originally developed to remove agricultural
pesticides from soil and water. They now have the ability to
customize the technology to degrade chemicals in water used for
fracking. Their goal is to make the water suitable for re-use in
fracking of other wells and significantly reduce the amount of water
used by industry.
The team will work with Tundra Companies of White Bear Lake, Minn.
on silica encapsulation technologies, and Luca Technologies of
Boulder, Colo. on a related effort — using encapsulated microbes to
recover natural gas from depleted coal beds. Neither company is
involved in fracking. However, they see a business opportunity in
helping the U.S. meet its energy needs domestically in an
environmentally responsible fashion. The university’s role is to
further develop a platform technology that could be used by these
and other companies.
Fracking relies on forcing millions of gallons of water, sand and
chemicals deep into the earth, creating fissures that allow natural
gas or oil to escape and be recovered. Wastewater returns to the
surface where it is treated and released into surface water,
injected back into the earth, or recycled for use for fracking of
other wells. Chemicals present deep below the Earth’s surface, as
well as chemicals used in fracking may contaminate water.
Evaporation and filtration, the current treatment methods, are
expensive. Moreover, they don’t eliminate chemicals, they simply
reduce them to a concentrated form. Industrial scale evaporation and
filtration are energy intensive, and both methods leave behind a
chemical residue that presents a disposal challenge.
The research team understands public concerns about the
environmental impact of fracking, as well as industry concerns about
misinformation related to risks, Elde says. A leading research
institution, the University of Minnesota has reached out to the
business community, via its large alumni network, to work together
on these issues.
“The University of Minnesota is not taking sides in the fracking
debate, but as a land-grant research institution, it is uniquely
positioned to carry out necessary and beneficial research,” Wackett
says. “There are many efforts ongoing to improve the treatment of
water used in fracking and we feel that biotechnology can play a
significant role in the overall effort.”
Earlier this year, Wackett and his team also won a University of
Minnesota Futures Grant to more broadly explore methods for
mitigating the environmental impacts of fracking. For this project,
they are working with a larger interdisciplinary group of
co-investigators including faculty in the Humphrey Institute for
Public Affairs and the School of Public Health as well as the
intercollegiate BioTechnology Institute. Given to only one or two
faculty teams annually, Futures Grants encourage extraordinary
collaborative research deemed likely to attract substantial external
funding.
SOURCE: University of Minnesota
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