1.
Borehole
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A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. g. in Carbon capture and storage. This includes holes advanced to collect samples, water samples or rock cores, to advance in situ sampling equipment. Samples collected from boreholes are often tested in a laboratory to determine their physical properties, typically, a borehole used as a water well is completed by installing a vertical pipe and well screen to keep the borehole from caving. This also helps prevent surface contaminants from entering the borehole and protects any installed pump from drawing in sand, oil and natural gas wells are completed in a similar, albeit usually more complex, manner. As detailed in proxy, borehole temperature measurements at a series of different depths can be inverted to help estimate historic surface temperatures. Clusters of small-diameter boreholes equipped with heat exhangers made of plastic PEX pipe can be used to heat or cold between opposing seasons in a mass of native rock. The technique is called seasonal thermal energy storage, media that can be used for this technique range from gravel to bedrock. There can be a few to several hundred boreholes, and in practice, Borehole drilling has a long history. Han Dynasty China used deep borehole drilling for mining and other projects, chinese borehole sites could reach as deep as 600 m. The practice of logging in boreholes dates to 1927, for the French Pechelbronn oil field. For many years, the world’s deepest borehole was the Kola Superdeep Borehole, from 2011 until August 2012 the record was held by the 12, 345-metre long Sakhalin-I Odoptu OP-11 Well, offshore the Russian island Sakhalin. The Chayvo Z-44 extended-reach well took the title of the worlds longest borehole on 27 August 2012, z-44s total measured depth is 12,376 m. However, ERD wells are more shallow than Kola Superdeep Borehole, drillers may sink a borehole using a drilling rig or a hand-operated rig. The machinery and techniques to advance a borehole vary considerably according to manufacturer, geological conditions, for offshore drilling floating units or platforms supported by the seafloor are used for the drilling rig. Askam Borehole in Pennsylvania Borehole thermal energy storage Deep borehole disposal Hole opener Kola Superdeep Borehole Vertical seismic profile
2.
Hammer drill
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A hammer drill, also known as a rotary hammer, roto-drill or hammering drill, is a rotary drill with a hammering action. The hammering action provides a short, rapid hammer thrust to pulverize relatively brittle material and these tools are usually electrically powered, and increasingly powered by batteries. The same technology is used in electric demolition hammers, also known as chipping guns or breakers. With cam-action drills, the chuck has a mechanism whereby the entire chuck and bit move forward and backwards on the axis of rotation, the motion is tied to the rotation of the chuck. This type of drill is used with and without the hammer action. These units are smaller and are commonly powered by cordless technology. They are not typically used for production construction drilling, but rather for occasional drilling of concrete or masonry, an EP hammer has two pistons—a drive piston, and a flying piston. An electric motor turns a crank, which moves the piston back. The flying piston is at the end of the same cylinder. The pistons do not actually touch, but the air pressure in the EP cylinder allows for a more efficient transfer of hammering energy than springs in the cam-action style tools. The majority of modern rotary hammers as well as all electric-powered chipping guns or jack-hammers all utilize this EP technology, modern units allow the hammer and rotation functions to be used separately or in combination, i. e. hammer mode, drill mode, or both. When used in the mode, the tool provides a drilling function similar to a jackhammer. Hammer drills of both working principles are well suited for drilling holes in masonry or stone and they are also both used to drill holes in concrete footings to pin concrete wall forms and to drill holes in concrete floors to pin wall framing. Larger rotary hammers can also be used for doweling, and through-holes in concrete, the hammering action helps to break up the masonry so that it can be removed by the drill bits flutes. A hammer drill has a specially designed clutch that allows it to not only spin the drill bit, the actual distance the bit travels in and out and the force of its blow are both very small, and the hammering action is very rapid—thousands of BPM or IPM. For this reason, a hammer drill drills much faster than a drill through concrete or brick. Holes in hard materials are needed for anchor bolts, concrete screws, hammer drills almost always have a lever or switch that locks off the special hammer clutch, turning the tool into a conventional drill for wood or metal work. Hammer drills are more expensive and more bulky than regular drills, for example, an electrician would use a hammer drill for attaching items to either wood studs or masonry walls
3.
Oil well
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An oil well is a boring in the Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil, a well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well. The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 CE and these wells had depths of up to about 240 metres and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt, by the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as Burning water in Japan in the 7th century, arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century, some sources claim that from the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan, to produce naphtha for the petroleum industry. These places were described by Marco Polo in the 13th century, when Marco Polo in 1264 visited Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, he saw oil being collected from seeps. He wrote that on the confines toward Geirgine there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, in 1846, Baku the first ever well was drilled with percussion tools to a depth of 21 meters for oil exploration. In 1848, the first modern oil well was drilled on the Aspheron Peninsula north-east of Baku, the earliest oil wells in modern times were drilled percussively, by repeatedly raising and dropping a cable tool into the earth. In the 20th century, cable tools were replaced with rotary drilling. The record-depth Kola Borehole used non-rotary mud motor drilling to achieve a depth of over 12,000 metres, until the 1970s, most oil wells were vertical, although lithological and mechanical imperfections cause most wells to deviate at least slightly from true vertical. However, modern directional drilling technologies allow for strongly deviated wells which can, given sufficient depth and with the proper tools, before a well is drilled, a geologic target is identified by a geologist or geophysicist to meet the objectives of the well. For a production well, the target is picked to optimize production from the well, for an exploration or appraisal well, the target is chosen to confirm the existence of a viable hydrocarbon reservoir or to ascertain its extent. The target will be matched with a location, and a trajectory between the two will be designed. When the well path is identified, a team of geoscientists and these properties include pore pressure, fracture gradient, wellbore stability, porosity, permeability, lithology, faults, and clay content. The well is created by drilling a hole 12 cm to 1 meter in diameter into the earth with a rig that rotates a drill string with a bit attached. After the hole is drilled, sections of pipe, slightly smaller in diameter than the borehole, are placed in the hole
4.
Well logging
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Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface or on physical measurements made by instruments lowered into the hole. Some types of geophysical well logs can be done during any phase of a history, drilling, completing, producing. Well logging is performed in boreholes drilled for the oil and gas, groundwater, mineral and geothermal exploration, the oil and gas industry uses wireline logging to obtain a continuous record of a formations rock properties. Wireline logging can be defined as being The acquisition and analysis of geophysical data performed as a function of well bore depth, note that wireline logging and mud logging are not the same, yet are closely linked through the integration of the data sets. For this article, they are broken down by the main property that they respond to. Real-time data is recorded directly against measured cable depth, memory data is recorded against time, and then depth data is simultaneously measured against time. The two data sets are then merged using the time base to create an instrument response versus depth log. Memory recorded depth can also be corrected in exactly the way as real-time corrections are made. The measurements made must then be corrected for elastic stretch and temperature, there are many types of wireline logs and they can be categorized either by their function or by the technology that they use. Open hole logs are run before the oil or gas well is lined with pipe or cased, cased hole logs are run after the well is lined with casing or production pipe. Wireline logs can be divided into categories based on the physical properties measured. Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, who founded Schlumberger Limited in 1926, are considered the inventors of electric well logging, conrad developed the Schlumberger array, which was a technique for prospecting for metal ore deposits, and the brothers adapted that surface technique to subsurface applications. On September 5,1927, a crew working for Schlumberger lowered an electric sonde or tool down a well in Pechelbronn, in modern terms, the first log was a resistivity log that could be described as 3. 5-meter upside-down lateral log. In 1931, Henri George Doll and G. Dechatre, working for Schlumberger and this led to the discovery of the spontaneous potential which was as important as the ability to measure resistivity. The SP effect was produced naturally by the mud at the boundaries of permeable beds. By simultaneously recording SP and resistivity, loggers could distinguish between permeable oil-bearing beds and impermeable nonproducing beds, in 1940, Schlumberger invented the spontaneous potential dipmeter, this instrument allowed the calculation of the dip and direction of the dip of a layer. The basic dipmeter was later enhanced by the resistivity dipmeter and the resistivity dipmeter
5.
Mud logging
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Mud logging is the creation of a detailed record of a borehole by examining the cuttings of rock brought to the surface by the circulating drilling medium. Mud logging is performed by a third-party mud logging company. This provides well owners and producers with information about the lithology, historically it is the earliest type of well log. Under some circumstances compressed air is employed as a circulating fluid, in hydrocarbon exploration, hydrocarbon surface gas detectors record the level of natural gas brought up in the mud. A mobile laboratory is situated by the mud logging company near the drilling rig or on deck of a drilling rig. Rock cuttings circulated to the surface in drilling mud are sampled and analyzed, the mud logging company is normally contracted by the oil company. They then organize this information in the form of a graphic log, the oil company representative together with the tool pusher, and well-site geologist provides mud loggers their instruction. The mud logging company is contracted specifically as to when to start well-logging activity, mud logging may begin on the first day of drilling, known as the spud in date but is more likely at some later time determined by the oil industry geologists research. The mud logger may also possess logs from wells drilled in the surrounding area and this information can provide valuable clues as to the characteristics of the particular geo-strata that the rig crew is about to drill through. Mud loggers connect various sensors to the apparatus and install specialized equipment to monitor or log drill activity. This can be physically and mentally challenging, especially when having to be done during drilling activity, much of the equipment will require precise calibration or alignment by the mud logger to provide accurate readings. Mud logging requires a good deal of diligence and attention, sampling the drilled cuttings must be performed at predetermined intervals, and can be difficult during rapid drilling. Because of the lag time between drilling and the time required for the mud and cuttings to return to the surface, the MWD technician, often a separate service company employee, logs data in a similar manner but the data is different in source and content. Most of the data logged by an MWD technician comes from expensive and complex, sometimes electronic, then data is plotted on a graphic log called a mud log. Rate of drilling is affected by the pressure of the column of mud in the borehole, a rock pressure greater than the mud fluid will tend to cause rock fragments to spall as it is cut and can increase the drilling rate. D-exponents are mathematical trend lines which estimate this internal pressure, thus both visual evidence of spalling and mathematical plotting assist in formulating recommendations for optimum drilling mud densities for both safety and economics. Mud logging is often written as a single word mudlogging, the finished product can be called a mud log or mudlog. The occupational description is mud logger or mudlogger, in most cases, the two word usage seems to be more common
6.
Drilling fluid
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In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are used for much simpler boreholes. Liquid drilling fluid is often called drilling mud, the three main categories of drilling fluids are water-based muds, non-aqueous muds, usually called oil-based mud, and gaseous drilling fluid, in which a wide range of gases can be used. The drilling fluid used for a job is selected to avoid formation damage. Many types of drilling fluids are used on a day-to-day basis, some wells require that different types be used at different parts in the hole, or that some types be used in combination with others. The various types of fluid generally fall into a few categories, Air. Air/water, The same as above, with added to increase viscosity, flush the hole, provide more cooling. Air/polymer, A specially formulated chemical, most often referred to as a type of polymer, is added to the water & air mixture to create specific conditions, a foaming agent is a good example of a polymer. Water, Water by itself is sometimes used, in offshore drilling sea water is typically used while drilling the top section of the hole. The clay is usually a combination of native clays that are suspended in the fluid while drilling, or specific types of clay that are processed, the most common of these is bentonite, frequently referred to in the oilfield as gel. When an adequate pumping force is applied to break the gel, flow resumes, many other chemicals are added to a WBM system to achieve various effects, including, viscosity control, shale stability, enhance drilling rate of penetration, cooling and lubricating of equipment. Oil-based mud, Oil-based mud is a mud where the fluid is a petroleum product such as diesel fuel. Oil-based muds are used for reasons, including increased lubricity, enhanced shale inhibition. Oil-based muds also withstand greater heat without breaking down, Synthetic-based fluid, Synthetic-based fluid is a mud where the base fluid is a synthetic oil. This is most often used on offshore rigs because it has the properties of an oil-based mud and this is important when men work with the fluid in an enclosed space such as an offshore drilling rig. Synthetic-based fluid poses the same environmental and analysis problems as oil-based fluid, on a drilling rig, mud is pumped from the mud pits through the drill string where it sprays out of nozzles on the drill bit, cleaning and cooling the drill bit in the process. Cuttings are then filtered out with either a shale shaker, or the newer shale conveyor technology, the mud pits let the drilled fines settle, the pits are also where the fluid is treated by adding chemicals and other substances. The returning mud can contain natural gases or other materials which will collect in
7.
Shale shakers
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Shale shakers are components of drilling equipment used in many industries, such as coal cleaning, mining, oil and gas drilling. They are the first phase of a control system on a drilling rig. Drilling fluids are integral to the process and, among other functions, serve to lubricate. These fluids are a mixture of chemicals in a water or oil based solution. For both environmental reasons and to reduce the cost of drilling operations, drilling fluid losses are minimized by stripping them away from the cuttings before the cuttings are disposed of. This is done using a multitude of specialized machines and tanks, shale shakers are the primary solids separation tool on a rig. After returning to the surface of the well the used drilling fluid flows directly to the shale shakers where it begins to be processed. Once processed by the shale shakers the drilling fluid is deposited into the mud tanks where other solid control equipment begin to remove the solids from it. The solids removed by the shale shaker are discharged out of the port into a separate holding tank where they await further treatment or disposal. Mudloggers usually go out and check the shakers for rock samples that have circulated from bottom and they separate the rock from the drilling fluid and take it into an onsite lab where they dry out the samples and label them according to depth. They then look at the samples and analyze what kind of rock they have at a certain depth and this helps determines what depth that type of rock was encountered. The hopper can be ordered according to the needs of the drilling fluid and it can come in different depths to accommodate larger quantities of drilling fluid as well as have different ports for returning the underflow to the mud system. This method of feeding the shaker is most widely used due to its ability to distribute the mud along the entire width of the shaker allowing for maximum use of the shakers screening deck area. It must do all that while holding the screens securely in place, eliminating drilled solids bypass to the hopper and allowing for easy operation, Beach, Is the area where the fluid has been mostly removed from the cuttings and they begin to look like a pile of solids. As a rule of thumb the Beach and pool are maintained at a ratio of 80% pool and 20% beach, vibrator- This is the device which applies the vibratory force and motion type to the shaker bed. To produce the proper Linear motion a second, counter rotating and this is what gives us the linear motion, high G shaking of the basket. This motion is used for sticky solids. NOV Brandt VSM300 shale shaker is the world’s first balanced elliptical motion shaker. Screen frames can be made from such as, square steel tubing, flat steel sheets
8.
Auger drilling
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A drilling rig is a machine that creates holes in the earth sub-surface. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, the term rig therefore generally refers to the complex of equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earths crust. Small to medium-sized drilling rigs are mobile, such as used in mineral exploration drilling, blast-hole, water wells. Hoists in the rig can lift hundreds of tons of pipe, other equipment can force acid or sand into reservoirs to facilitate extraction of the oil or natural gas, and in remote locations there can be permanent living accommodation and catering for crews. Marine rigs may operate thousands of miles distant from the base with infrequent crew rotation or cycle. Oil and natural gas drilling rigs are used not only to identify geologic reservoirs and this frees up the drilling rig to drill another hole and streamlines the operation as well as allowing for specialization of certain services, i. e. completions vs. drilling. New portable drillcat technology uses smaller portable trailer mounted rigs with shorter 3-metre drill pipe, the shorter drill pipe also allows a much smaller mast. Portable trailer mounted drilling rigs have drill ratings from 90 to 200 metres depending on mud pump flow and pressure ratings, other, heavier, truck rigs are more complicated, thus requiring more skill to run. Theyre also more difficult to handle due to the longer 6-to-9-metre drill pipe. Large truck rigs also require a much higher overhead clearance to operate, large truck drills can use over 570 litres of fuel per day, while the smaller Deeprock Style portable drills use a mere 20 to 75 litres of fuel per day. This makes smaller, more portable rigs preferable in remote or hard-to-reach places, Drilling rigs used for rock blasting for surface mines vary in size dependent on the size of the hole desired, and is typically classified into smaller pre-split and larger production holes. Underground mining uses a variety of drill rigs dependent on the purpose, such as production, bolting, cabling. Until internal combustion engines were developed in the late 19th century, the drilling of wells for the manufacture of salt began by the Song Dynasty in China. The well had a small mouth, as small as a small bowl. Archaeological evidence of the tools used in deep-well dwelling are kept. According to Salt, A World History, a Qing Dynasty well, also located in Zigong, diamond drilling has remained essentially unchanged since its inception. In early oil exploration, drilling rigs were semi-permanent in nature, in more recent times drilling rigs are expensive custom-built machines that can be moved from well to well. Some light duty drilling rigs are like a crane and are more usually used to drill water wells
9.
Core drill
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A core drill is a drill specifically designed to remove a cylinder of material, much like a hole saw. The material left inside the drill bit is referred to as the core, Core drills used in metal are called annular cutters. Core drills used for concrete are generally called Diamond Core Drills and are water cooled, for drilling masonry, carbide core drills can be used. The earliest core drills were used by the ancient Egyptians. This is the reason that diamond-tipped core drills are used in construction to create holes for pipes, manholes. Core drills are used frequently in mineral exploration where the coring may be several hundred to several feet in length. The core samples are recovered and examined by geologists for mineral percentages and this gives exploration companies the information necessary to begin or abandon mining operations in a particular area. Before the start of World War Two, Branner Newsom, a California mining engineer and this type of core drill is no longer in use as modern drill technology allows standard drilling to accomplish the same at a much cheaper cost. Core drills come with several power choices including electric, pneumatic, hydraulic, a core drill is also a miniature drill shaped object that controls giant mechs Core drills Drilling fluid Drilling rig Exploration diamond drilling
10.
Landfill
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A landfill site is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and the oldest form of waste treatment. Historically, landfills have been the most common method of organized waste disposal, some landfills are also used for waste management purposes, such as the temporary storage, consolidation and transfer, or processing of waste material. A landfill also may refer to ground that has filled in with rocks instead of waste materials, so that it can be used for a specific purpose. Unless they are stabilized, these areas may experience severe shaking or soil liquefaction of the ground during a large earthquake, afterward, the waste collection vehicles use the existing road network on their way to the tipping face or working front, where they unload their contents. After loads are deposited, compactors or bulldozers can spread and compact the waste on the working face, before leaving the landfill boundaries, the waste collection vehicles may pass through a wheel-cleaning facility. If necessary, they return to the weighbridge for re-weighing without their load, the weighing process can assemble statistics on the daily incoming waste tonnage, which databases can retain for record keeping. In addition to trucks, some landfills may have equipment to handle railroad containers, the use of rail-haul permits landfills to be located at more remote sites, without the problems associated with many truck trips. Typically, in the face, the compacted waste is covered with soil or alternative materials daily. Alternative waste-cover materials include chipped wood or other waste, several sprayed-on foam products, chemically fixed bio-solids. Blankets can be lifted into place at night and then removed the day prior to waste placement. The space that is occupied daily by the waste and the cover material is called a daily cell. Waste compaction is critical to extending the life of the landfill, factors such as waste compressibility, waste-layer thickness and the number of passes of the compactor over the waste affect the waste densities. Landfills are often the most cost-efficient way to dispose of waste, in addition, landfill gas can be upgraded to natural gas—landfill gas utilization—which is a potential revenue stream. Another advantage is having a location for disposal that can be monitored. Landfills have the potential to cause a number of issues, infrastructure disruption, such as damage to access roads by heavy vehicles, may occur. Pollution of local roads and water courses from wheels on vehicles when they leave the landfill can be significant, pollution of the local environment, such as contamination of groundwater or aquifers or soil contamination may occur, as well. Extensive efforts are made to capture and treat leachate from landfills before it reaches groundwater aquifers, eventually, every landfill liner will leak, allowing the leachate to contaminate the groundwater. Installation of composite liners with flexible membrane and soil barrier is enforced by the EPA to ensure that leachate is withheld, rotting food and other decaying organic waste allows methane and carbon dioxide to seep out of the ground and up into the air
11.
Oil field
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An oil field or oilfield is a region with an abundance of oil wells extracting petroleum from below ground. Because the oil reservoirs typically extend over an area, possibly several hundred kilometres across. In addition, there may be exploratory wells probing the edges, pipelines to transport the oil elsewhere, because an oil field may be remote from civilization, establishing a field is often an extremely complicated exercise in logistics. This goes beyond requirements for drilling, to include associated infrastructure, for instance, workers require housing to allow them to work onsite for months or years. In turn, housing and equipment require electricity and water, in cold regions, pipelines may need to be heated. Also, excess gas may be burned off if there is no way to make use of it—which requires a furnace, chimney. More than 40,000 oil fields are scattered around the globe, on land, the largest are the Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia and the Burgan Field in Kuwait, with more than 60 billion barrels estimated in each. Most oil fields are much smaller, according to the US Department of Energy, as of 2003 the US alone had over 30,000 oil fields. In the modern age, the location of oil fields with oil reserves is a key underlying factor in many geopolitical conflicts. The term oilfield is also used as a shorthand to refer to the petroleum industry. However, it is accurate to divide the oil industry into three sectors, upstream, midstream and downstream. Oil Fields from Space - nighttime satellite images showing fields around the world
12.
Waste management
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Waste management or Waste disposal is all the activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes amongst other things, collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste together with monitoring and it also encompasses the legal and regulatory framework that relates to waste management encompassing guidance on recycling etc. Waste management is intended to reduce effects of waste on health. Waste management practices are not uniform among countries, regions, there are a number of concepts about waste management which vary in their usage between countries or regions. The waste hierarchy remains the cornerstone of most waste minimisation strategies, the aim of the waste hierarchy is to extract the maximum practical benefits from products and to generate the minimum amount of waste, see, resource recovery. The waste hierarchy is represented as a pyramid because the premise is for policy to take action first. The next step or preferred action is to reduce the generation of waste i. e. by re-use, the next is recycling which would include composting. Following this step is material recovery and waste-to-energy, energy can be recovered from processes i. e. landfill and combustion, at this level of the hierarchy. The final action is disposal, in landfills or through incineration without energy recovery and this last step is the final resort for waste which has not been prevented, diverted or recovered. The waste hierarchy represents the progression of a product or material through the stages of the pyramid of waste management. The hierarchy represents the latter parts of the life-cycle for each product, the life-cycle begins with design, then proceeds through manufacture, distribution, use and then follows through the waste hierarchys stages of reduce, reuse and recycle. Each of the stages of the life-cycle offers opportunities for policy intervention, to rethink the need for the product, to redesign to minimize waste potential. The key behind the life-cycle of a product is to optimize the use of the limited resources by avoiding the unnecessary generation of waste. Resource efficiency reflects the understanding that current, global, economic growth, globally, we are extracting more resources to produce goods than the planet can replenish. Resource efficiency is the reduction of the impact from the production and consumption of these goods, from final raw material extraction to last use. This process of resource efficiency can address sustainability, the Polluter pays principle is a principle where the polluting party pays for the impact caused to the environment. With respect to management, this generally refers to the requirement for a waste generator to pay for appropriate disposal of the unrecoverable material. Throughout most of history, the amount of waste generated by humans was insignificant due to low population density, common waste produced during pre-modern times was mainly ashes and human biodegradable waste, and these were released back into the ground locally, with minimum environmental impact
13.
Calcium nitrate
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Calcium nitrate, also called Norgessalpeter, is the inorganic compound with the formula Ca2. This colourless salt absorbs moisture from the air and is found as a tetrahydrate. It is mainly used as a component in fertilizers but has other applications, nitrocalcite is the name for a mineral which is a hydrated calcium nitrate that forms as an efflorescence where manure contacts concrete or limestone in a dry environment as in stables or caverns. A variety of related salts are known including calcium ammonium nitrate decahydrate, Norgessalpeter was synthesized at Notodden, Norway in 1905 by the Birkeland–Eyde process. Most of the calcium nitrate is now made in Porsgrunn. The fertilizer grade is popular in the greenhouse and hydroponics trades, it contains ammonium nitrate and water and this is called calcium ammonium nitrate. Formulations lacking ammonia are also known, Ca2·4H2O, a liquid formulation is also offered. An anhydrous, air-stable derivative is the urea complex Ca2·4, which has sold as Cal-Urea. Calcium nitrate is used to control certain plant diseases. For example, dilute calcium nitrate sprays are used to bitter pit. Calcium nitrate is used in waste water pre-conditioning for odour emission prevention, the waste water pre-conditioning is based on establishing an anoxic biology in the waste water system. In the presence of nitrate, the metabolism for sulfates stops, additionally easy degradable organic matter is consumed, which otherwise can cause anaerobic conditions downstream as well as odour emissions itself. The concept is applicable for surplus sludge treatment. Calcium nitrate is used in set accelerating concrete admixtures and this use with concrete and mortar is based on two effects. The calcium ion accelerates formation of hydroxide and thus precipitation. This effect is used also in cold weather concreting agents as well as some combined plasticizers, the nitrate ion leads to formation of iron hydroxide, whose protective layer reduces corrosion of the concrete reinforcement. Calcium nitrate is a very common coagulant in latex production, especially in dipping processes, dissolved calcium nitrate is a part of the dipping bath solution. The warm former is dipped into the liquid and a thin film of the dipping liquid remains on the former
14.
Potassium sulfate
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Potassium sulfate is a non-flammable white crystalline salt which is soluble in water. The chemical compound is used in fertilizers, providing both potassium and sulfur. Potassium sulfate has been known since early in the 14th century, and it was studied by Glauber, Boyle, in the 17th century, it was named arcanuni or sal duplicatum, as it was a combination of an acid salt with an alkaline salt. It was also known as vitriolic tartar and Glasers salt or sal polychrestum Glaseri after the pharmaceutical chemist Christopher Glaser who prepared it, the mineral form of potassium sulfate, arcanite, is relatively rare. Natural resources of potassium sulfate are minerals abundant in the Stassfurt salt and these are cocrystallizations of potassium sulfate and sulfates of magnesium calcium and sodium. Kieserite, MgSO4·H2O, can be combined with a solution of chloride to produce potassium sulfate. Approximately 1.5 million tons were produced in 1985, typically by the reaction of chloride with sulfuric acid. SO2 is produced through the burning of sulfur, orthorhombic β-K2SO4 is the common form, but it converts to α-K2SO4 above 583 °C. These structures are complex, although the sulfate adopts the typical tetrahedral geometry and it does not form a hydrate, unlike sodium sulfate. The salt crystallize as double six-sided pyramids, classified as rhombic and they are transparent, very hard and have a bitter, salty taste. The salt is soluble in water, but insoluble in solutions of potassium hydroxide, the dominant use of potassium sulfate is as a fertilizer. K2SO4 does not contain chloride, which can be harmful to some crops, potassium sulfate is preferred for these crops, which include tobacco and some fruits and vegetables. Crops that are sensitive may still require potassium sulfate for optimal growth if the soil accumulates chloride from irrigation water. The crude salt is used occasionally in the manufacture of glass. Potassium sulfate is used as a flash reducer in artillery propellant charges. It reduces muzzle flash, flareback and blast overpressure and it is sometimes used as an alternative blast media similar to soda in soda blasting as it is harder and similarly water-soluble. Potassium hydrogen sulfate, KHSO4, is produced by reacting K2SO4 with sulfuric acid. It forms rhombic pyramids, which melt at 197 °C and it dissolves in three parts of water at 0 °C
15.
United States Department of Energy
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The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States Government concerned with the United States policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. It also directs research in genomics, the Human Genome Project originated in a DOE initiative, DOE sponsors more research in the physical sciences than any other U. S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. Former Governor of Texas Rick Perry is the current Secretary of Energy and he was confirmed by a 62 to 37 vote in the United States Senate on March 2,2017. In 1942, during World War II, the United States started the Manhattan Project, after the war in 1946, the Atomic Energy Commission was created to control the future of the project. The 1973 oil crisis called attention to the need to consolidate energy policy, on August 4,1977, President Jimmy Carter signed into law The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977, which created the Department of Energy. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who served under Presidents Nixon, a DOE spokesperson denied that phrases had been banned. In December 1999, the FBI was investigating how China obtained plans for a nuclear device. Wen Ho Lee was accused of stealing nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Peoples Republic of China, Federal officials, including then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, publicly named Lee as a suspect before he was charged with a crime. The U. S. Congress held hearings to investigate the Department of Energys mishandling of his case, republican senators thought that an independent agency should be in charge of nuclear weapons and security issues, not the Department of Energy. All but one of the 59 charges against Lee were eventually dropped because the investigation proved that the plans the Chinese obtained could not have come from Lee. Lee filed suit and won a $1.6 million settlement against the federal government, the department is under the control and supervision of a United States Secretary of Energy, a political appointee of the President of the United States. The Energy Secretary is assisted in managing the department by a United States Deputy Secretary of Energy, also appointed by the president, the department also has three under secretaries, each appointed by the president, who oversee the major areas of the departments work. The president also appoints seven officials with the rank of Assistant Secretary of Energy who have line management responsibility for major elements of the Department. The Energy Secretary assigns their functions and duties. S.4 billion budget request for DOE for fiscal year 2010, including $2.3 billion for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The budget aims to expand the use of renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure. It also makes significant investments in hybrids and plug-in hybrids, in smart grid technologies, most of the stimulus spending was in the form of grants and contracts. The contractor guarantees the energy improvements will generate savings, and after the contract ends, in loan guarantees, a conditional commitment requires to meet an equity commitment, as well as other conditions, before the loan guarantee is completed. The DOE budget includes $280 million to fund eight Energy Innovation Hubs, yet another hub will develop smart materials that will allow the electrical grid to adapt and respond to changing conditions
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This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Department of Energy.