Testing Bacterial Remediation of simulated fracking wastewater brine

[deleted-377450]

I am a 10th grader, and am working on a science fair project, and I was wondering how I would dose a bacteria with a brine solution that contained methanol

also I was wondering how to test the salinity of the solution in a low tech way, a cheaper device, or a common device my school lab would have

thanks, william

[SciB]

Hi,

That's a great idea for a project. If you can get some of the actual fracking solution that would be best--otherwise make your own. If you made your own you would not need to measure salinity as you would know how much salt you added to the solution.

E coli K12 are the bacteria most often used for experiments to test the effects of toxic chemicals as they are harmless to people and easy to grow. Scibuddies has a lot of information on using E coli and you can buy E coli cultures from Carolina Biologicals.

What is your hypothesis? Are you concerned about pollution of ground water with fracking solutions? You might want to consider using an environmental indicator species like Daphnia (also available from Carolina Biologicals) which is found in ponds and streams. E coli bacteria are inhabitants of the human intestine, a spot where fracking liquids hopefully would not reach unless people were drinking water contaminated with the solution.

Let us know a little more about your idea and we can then better help you to design a good project.

Sybee