Unimin Corporation

David John Rush

Juan Leal Gonzalez

Method and system for making a spherical proppant having a selected grade from a naturally occurring mined mineral having a hardness of over 6.0 Mohs. The method and system involves preprocessing the mineral mechanically into a semi-dry feedstock comprising a mass of particles with initial sphericity values generally less than 0.60; subjecting the semi-dry feedstock to an aggressive abrasive attrition operation for a process time; and, controlling the process time to a value wherein the particles of the feedstock are converted to final processed particles having a sphericity greater than 0.60 by increasing the sphericity of the feedstock particles by at least 0.10. In addition, the processed particles are screened to obtain a proppant having a selected grade.

Growing community of inventors

Denton, TX, United States of America

David John Rush