Hyperbranched polyglycerols, obtained from environmentally benign monomer, as reactive clays inhibitors for water‐based drilling fluids

Abstract

To prevent the degradation of the borehole and also the disintegration and dispersion of drilled cuttings, different shale stabilizing additives are used in water-based drilling fluids (WBFs). Glycols, poly(ethylene glycol), glycerols, and polyglycerol derivatives, also called polyols, have been used to inhibit shales containing reactive clays in WBF. These additives are normally used in conjunction with KCl to reduce clay swelling and dispersion of drilled cuttings. Highly branched polymers have become an important field in current polymer science. Such materials typically exhibit compact, globular structures in combination with an exceptionally high number of sites with functional groups. They have unique properties that differ significantly from their linear counterparts, and the hyperbranched polyglycerol (hPG) is an important hyperbranched polymer that can be produced from an environmentally benign monomer, the glycerol carbonate. In this article, the clay inhibitive properties of hPG were evaluated by different test methods including bentonite inhibition test, cuttings recovery, and X-ray diffraction measurements. The results show that the hPG has a great potential to be used as an environmental friendly inhibitor additive in WBFs.

Application of carboxymethylated carob bean gum as eco-friendly water based drilling fluids additive

“…The increasing of temperature has made the carboxymethylation of CBG easier, and was conducive to the smooth expansion of the product in aqueous solution, which have led to the increase of AV. [22][23][24] When the reaction temperature exceeded 50 °C, the increasing of temperature may lead to the degradation of CBG and the occurrence of side reactions, thus the performances of CCBG have decreased accordingly.…”

Synergistic stabilization of shale by a mixture of polyamidoamine dendrimers modified bentonite with various generations in water-based drilling fluid

“…Miller (2011) reported that hydrogenated poly (propylene imine) dendrimers could be used as shale hydration inhibition agents and were not hydrolyzed up to 260°C, exhibiting high temperature resistance. Teixeira et al (2014) found that the hyperbranched polyglycerols were promising environmentally friendly inhibitors in water-based drilling fluids.…”

Partially hydrophobized hyperbranched polyglycerols as non-ionic reactive shale inhibitors for water-based drilling fluids

“…However, dendrimers demand laborius multistep synthetic procedures, in contrary, polyglycerols are usually produced in simple one-step procedures (Parzuchowski et al, 2008). Teixeira et al (2014) applied hyperbranched polyglycerols obtained from glycerol carbonate, an ecofriendly precursor, in association with KCl, achieving high percentage cuttings recovery with a polymer concentration about 5 wt%. It has been demonstrated that the performance of these hyperbranched structures is superior to the ones obtained with linear PEGs.…”