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. 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 (flow velocity) that will conduct
Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis The excess dye incorporated into the gel can be removed by destaining with the same solution without the dye. The proteins are detected as blue bands on a clear background. As SDS is also anionic, it may interfere with staining process. Therefore, large volume of staining solution is recommended, at least ten times the volume of the gel. Ethidium bromide (EtBr) is a popular nucleic acid stain. EtBr allows one to easily visualize DNA or RNA on a gel as EtBr fluoresces an orange color under UV light. Ethidium bromide binds nucleic acid chains through the process of Intercalation. While