posted on 2021-10-12, 03:29authored byTian Ao, Lili Yang, Chunlin Xie, Guancheng Jiang, Guoshuai Wang, Zeyu Liu, Xianbo He
Water-based drilling fluids (WBDFs)
that are susceptible to high
temperature and saline pollution always exhibit poor ability to control
fluid loss and seriously threaten the operation security of oil well
drilling; especially, ultradeep well WBDFs that can simultaneously
tolerate high salinity and temperature of over 200 °C are difficult
to obtain. Herein, a zwitterionic silica-based hybrid nanomaterial
(ZSHNM) with a spherical morphology (50–150 nm) was synthesized,
and its filtration performance was thoroughly investigated. ZSHNM
showed an extraordinary long-term (≥10 months) dispersion stability
even at high concentrations in water and possessed remarkable tolerance
to high temperature and salinity. Typically, merely adding 2 wt %
ZSHNM in WBDFs could achieve an excellent filtration performance even
at 240 °C, and with 11 wt % CaCl2 or 36 wt % NaCl
added, it showed the best performance to our knowledge. The results
suggested that the sodium bentonite (Na-Bent) dispersion could be
well stabilized in the presence of ZSHNM even at high temperature
and with the presence of cations. Additionally, the silicate core
could improve the thermal stability of ZSHNM, whereas the zwitterionic
shell could form complexes with cations and further mitigate the aggregation
of Na-Bent particles. Thus, the particle size distribution in WBDFs
could be finely regulated similar to that in neat Na-Bent dispersion.
Furthermore, given the zwitterionic ZSHNM filled in the micro–nanopores
among the Na-Bent particles, a compact and low-permeability filter
cake was readily formed and ultimately reduced the drilling fluid
loss during the filtration process. This work provided a versatile
strategy to address the high temperature and high salinity tolerance
of WBDFs synchronously, thereby pioneering a new way to develop high-performance
drilling additives for ultradeep and complex wells.