$Hydraulic fracturing proppants$

Hydraulic fracturing proppants

A proppant is a solid material, typically sand, treated sand or man-made ceramic materials, designed to keep an induced hydraulic fracture open, during or following a fracturing treatment, most commonly for unconventional reservoirs. It is added to a fracking fluid which may vary in composition depending on the type of fracturing used, and can be gel, foam or slickwater-based. In addition, there may be unconventional fracking fluids.

Fluids make tradeoffs in such material properties as viscosity, where more viscous fluids can carry more concentrated proppant; the energy or pressure demands to maintain a certain flux pump rate that will conduct the proppant appropriately; pH, various rheological factors, among others.
In addition, fluids may be used in low-volume well stimulation of high-permeability sandstone wells to the high-volume operations such as shale gas and tight gas that use millions of gallons of water per well.

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Source: Wikipedia · Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0