Patent ID: 8529155

Claim:
A method for extracting natural gas and/or oil within a bedrock/shale formation with a high clean water recovery rate, the method comprising: drilling a well into a bedrock/shale formation; injecting water, sand and fracking fluid under high pressure into the bedrock/shale formation via the well; recovering hydro-fracturing wastewater from the well, the hydro-fracturing wastewater being selected from the group consisting of post-drilling flowback water and production brine water; removing oil from the hydro-fracturing wastewater; removing solid particulates from the hydro-fracturing wastewater; removing large organic molecules selected from the group consisting of benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene from the hydro-fracturing wastewater; after removing the oil and the solid particulates, adding an effective amount of at least one reagent to the hydro-fracturing wastewater to produce a chemically treated wastewater and a precipitate comprising at least one chemical constituent selected from the group consisting of barium and strontium; separating the precipitate from the chemically treated wastewater; after separating the precipitate, introducing the chemically treated wastewater to a crystallization process to produce sodium chloride solids, a calcium chloride solution and a clean water distillate containing less than 500 ppm of total dissolved solids, wherein the clean water distillate is usable as source water for hydro-fracturing or returnable to the environment; and drying the sodium chloride solids to produce over about 98% pure dry sodium chloride.