Enhancement of thermal stability of drilling fluid using laponite nanoparticles under extreme temperature conditions

doi:10.1016/j.matlet.2019.04.005

Materials Letters

Volume 248, 1 August 2019, Pages 146-149

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2019.04.005 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Laponite could substantially enhance the thermal stability of drilling fluid.
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Laponite increased the onset decomposition temperature of AAD terpolymer.
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Laponite largely increased the high-temperature viscosity of the solution of AAD.
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Strong interactions between laponite and AAD lead to the enhancement.

Abstract

Aiming to overcome the problem of polymer degradation in water based drilling fluids under high temperature, this letter examined the influence of laponite nanoparticles on the thermal stability of drilling fluids. Firstly, a terpolymer (AAD) was synthesized through radical polymerization of acrylamide, 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid, and diallyldimethylammonium chloride monomers. The presence of laponite nanoparticles significantly improved the onset decomposition temperature and viscosities of AAD terpolymer at high temperatures, according to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and high temperature high pressure (HTHP) rheology results, respectively. Thereafter, water based drilling fluids containing AAD and laponite were formulated and aged under different temperatures. The drilling fluids containing laponite had a substantially higher viscosity than that without laponite ascribing to strong interactions between laponite and functional groups of the ADD terpolymer. This letter provided us a novel strategy to develop high temperature resistant drilling fluids for deep reservoir excavation.

Graphical abstract

Introduction

With the gradual depletion of easily accessible shallow oil and gas resources, deep and ultra-deep resources have become a major development direction. However, the bottom hole temperature of deep and ultra-deep wells is high which could be over 200 °C. The high-temperature condition underground put forward a higher demand on the thermal stability of drilling fluid during drilling process.

The polymeric additives would degrade under high temperature, resulting in deterioration of the properties of drilling fluid. The most studied high-temperature polymers in drilling fluid contain strongly hydrophilic groups, such as sulfonic acid groups. For example, 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS) copolymers [1] are widely utilized as high temperature-resistant chemicals in drilling fluid. With the development of nanotechnology, the investigations on the enhancement of thermal stability of polymers using nanoparticles are intensively conducted. However, most of these studies focus on the enhancement of thermal stability of polymers in solid state [2], [3]. The enhancement of thermal stability of polymers in aqueous solution using nanoparticles is less studied. In drilling fluid area, nanoparticles are increasingly applied to improve the rheology [4], plugging ability [5], filtration property, etc. However, the commonly used nanoparticles are easy to aggregate which increases the difficulty of application.

Laponite is a synthetic layered silicate having disk-shaped particles with a diameter of approximately 25 nm. It has an excellent dispersing property and long-term stability in water due to electrical double-layers, which makes laponite more promising in application.

The objective of the research is to study the influence of laponite nanoparticles on the thermal stability of water based drilling fluid. We studied the TGA of AAD/laponite nanocomposites and viscosity changes as a function of temperature of corresponding solutions and evaluated the performances of drilling fluids. Finally, the thermal resistance mechanism was reasonably proposed.

Section snippets

Materials

Laponite RD was obtained from Southern Clay Products, UK. Bentonite was provided by CNPC Great Wall Drilling Company. Nano-SiO₂ (20 nm) was purchased in Nanjing Xfnano Company. The AAD terpolymer was synthesized through radical polymerization of acrylamide, AMPS, and diallyldimethyl- ammonium chloride monomers at a mole ratio of 3: 5: 0.5 at 35 °C for 4 h. Before reaction, the pH of the mixture of monomers was adjusted to 7.0. The initiator was ammonium persulfate and the dose is 0.2 wt% of the

Influence of laponite on the thermal resistance of AAD terpolymer

TGA curves of pure AAD, AAD/laponite (4:1) and AAD/laponite (2:1) are presented in Fig. 1a. Pure AAD terpolymer has the onset decomposition temperature of 310.7 °C, after which it rapidly degraded. When 25.0 wt% and 50.0 wt% laponite were added into AAD, the onset degradation temperature was increased by 29.0 and 33.8 °C, respectively.

Fig. 1b shows the viscosity changes as a function of temperature for laponite/AAD aqueous suspensions. As shown in Fig. 1b, 1 wt% laponite suspension had a very

Conclusion

Laponite could increase the onset deposition temperature of solid-state AAD terpolymer and substantially increase the high-temperature viscosity of 2 wt% AAD terpolymer water solution. Laponite were beneficial to maintain a higher viscosity of drilling fluid under high temperature by slowing down the degradation process of AAD, the possible reason of which was that strong interactions exist between laponite and functional groups of AAD according to mechanism analysis.

Conflict of interest

There is no interests to declare.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2018M630812] 、Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number U1762212] and CNPC Project [grant number 2018A-3907].

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