Onaizi Sagheer A, Gawish Monaf Abdalmajid, Murtaza Mobeen, Gomaa Ibrahim, Tariq Zeeshan, Mahmoud Mohamed
Department of Chemical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31216, Saudi Arabia.
Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
ACS Omega. 2020 Nov 18;5(47):30729-30739. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c04953. eCollection 2020 Dec 1.
Drilling hydrocarbon formations where hydrogen sulfide (HS) is present could lead to the carryover of HS with the drilling mud (i.e., drilling fluid) to the surface, exposing working personnel to this lethal gas. Additionally, HS is very corrosive, causing severe corrosion of metal parts of the drilling equipment, which in turn results in serious operational problems. The addition of an effective HS scavenger(s) in the drilling mud formulations will overcome these health, safety, and operational issues. In this work, zinc oxide (ZnO), which is a common HS scavenger, has been incorporated into water-based drilling mud. The HS scavenging performance of this ZnO-containing drilling mud has been assessed. Additionally, drilling mud formulations containing either copper nitrate (Cu(NO)·3HO) or potassium permanganate (KMnO) have been prepared, and their HS scavenging performances have been studied and compared to that of the ZnO-containing drilling mud. It has been observed that the scavenging performance (in terms of the HS amounts scavenged up to the breakthrough time and at the saturation condition) of the ZnO-containing drilling mud is very poor compared to those of the copper nitrate-containing and KMnO-containing drilling muds. For instance, the amounts of HS scavenged up to the breakthrough time by ZnO-containing, copper nitrate-containing, and KMnO-containing drilling muds were 5.5, 15.8, and 125.3 mg/g, respectively. Furthermore, the amounts of HS scavenged at the saturation condition by these drilling muds were, respectively, 35.1, 146.8, and 307.5 mg/g, demonstrating the superiority of the KMnO-containing drilling mud. Besides its attractive HS scavenging performance, the KMnO-containing drilling mud possessed more favorable rheological properties [i.e., plastic viscosity (PV), yield point (YP), carrying capacity of the drill cuttings, and gelling characteristics] relative to the base and the ZnO-containing and copper nitrate-containing drilling muds. The addition of KMnO to the base drilling mud increased its apparent viscosity, PV, and YP by 20, 33, and 10%, respectively. Additionally, all tested drilling muds possessed acceptable fluid loss characteristics. To the best of our knowledge, there are so far no published studies concurrently tackling the HS scavenging (i.e., breakthrough time, breakthrough capacity, saturation time, saturation capacity, and scavenger utilization) and the rheological properties of water-based drilling muds, as demonstrated in the current study, highlighting the novelty of this work.
在存在硫化氢（HS）的烃类地层中进行钻探，可能会导致HS随钻井泥浆（即钻井液）被携带至地面，使工作人员暴露于这种致命气体中。此外，HS具有很强的腐蚀性，会导致钻井设备的金属部件严重腐蚀，进而引发严重的操作问题。在钻井泥浆配方中添加有效的HS清除剂将克服这些健康、安全和操作方面的问题。在这项工作中，常见的HS清除剂氧化锌（ZnO）已被添加到水基钻井泥浆中。已对这种含ZnO的钻井泥浆的HS清除性能进行了评估。此外，还制备了含有硝酸铜（Cu(NO)·3HO）或高锰酸钾（KMnO）的钻井泥浆配方，并研究了它们的HS清除性能，并与含ZnO的钻井泥浆进行了比较。已观察到，与含硝酸铜和含KMnO的钻井泥浆相比，含ZnO的钻井泥浆的清除性能（就直至突破时间和饱和条件下清除的HS量而言）非常差。例如，含ZnO、含硝酸铜和含KMnO的钻井泥浆直至突破时间清除的HS量分别为5.5、15.8和125.3 mg/g。此外，这些钻井泥浆在饱和条件下清除的HS量分别为35.1、146.8和307.5 mg/g，表明含KMnO的钻井泥浆具有优越性。除了其吸引人的HS清除性能外，含KMnO的钻井泥浆相对于基础泥浆以及含ZnO和含硝酸铜的钻井泥浆还具有更有利的流变性能[即塑性粘度（PV）、屈服点（YP）、钻屑携带能力和胶凝特性]。向基础钻井泥浆中添加KMnO使其表观粘度、PV和YP分别增加了20%、33%和10%。此外，所有测试的钻井泥浆都具有可接受的滤失特性。据我们所知，目前尚无已发表的研究同时涉及水基钻井泥浆的HS清除（即突破时间、突破容量、饱和时间、饱和容量和清除剂利用率）和流变性能，如本研究所示，突出了这项工作的新颖性。
