Toward cheaper water treatment
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” produces a lot of wastewater. Drilling one well requires millions of gallons of water that’s injected into the ground to loosen rocks and release oil. While some is reused, much of the produced water is discarded into deep injection wells, and clean water is purchased again and again. But MIT spinout Gradiant Corporation is working toward making fracking a water-neutral process, by making water reuse more economical. Founded by Anurag Bajpayee SM ’08, PhD ’12, and Prakash Govindan PhD ’12, Gradiant has developed cost-effective systems to treat briny oilfield water for reuse, saving millions of gallons of water — and millions of dollars — annually. Launched in 2012 with help from MIT’s industry-connected ecosystem, Gradiant has erected two 12,000-barrel-per-day plants in the Permian Basin of Texas, partnering with two drilling clients who treat about 10,000 barrels daily there. “That’s 10,000 barrels a day they’re not disposing of, and...