Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing in the United States tuberculosis, kidney disease, autoimmune disorders and airway disease such as asthma and bronchitis. Most of these debilitating and potentially fatal diseases are preventable with occupational control measures regarding respirable crystalline exposure. Hydraulic fracturing uses abundant amounts of sand in the process of fracturing as part of the hydraulic fluid. The fracturing fluid consists of a base fluid, proppant and chemical additives. The majority of proppant used in fracturing are made of silica (sand). Truck loads of sand are delivered to the sites, then loaded to sand movers that are then transferred to a blender that mixes the hydraulic fluid. The
Guar gum gum shows a clear low shear plateau on the flow curve and is strongly shear thinning. The rheology of guar gum is typical for a random coil polymer. It does not show the very high low shear plateau viscosities seen with more rigid polymer chains such as xanthan gum. It is very thixotropic above 1% concentration, but below 0.3%, the thixotropy is slight. Guar gum shows viscosity synergy with xanthan gum. Guar gum and micellar casein mixtures can be slightly thixotropic if a biphase system forms. One use of guar gum is as a thickening agent in foods and medicines