Abstract
Application of dendrimers and dendritic polymers in oil and gas field fluid formulation can revolutionise the fluid properties due to the unique physical, chemical and biological characteristics of these materials. The ability to synthesize tailor made dendrimer products with desirable functional behaviour also highlights the potential application of dendrimers in smart and intelligent fluid design for oil and gas field application. The large number of monomer units associated with dendrimer core has the potential to add several functional groups of same ionic nature or different ionic natures to fulfil certain technical tasks for a particular application. Custom made dendrimer-based additives that are insensitive to temperature, salinity, pH, solids concentration, cement and lime contamination may lead to the development of a multiple contaminant tolerant drilling mud system for trouble free drilling operation in variable borehole environments. Due to superior physical, chemical, electrical and mechanical properties of dendrimers and dendritic polymers, and also the synthesis of dendrimers that are capable to respond intelligently according to down hole conditions can provide instantaneous solution to various drilling problems.
The internal cavities within the dendrimer structures can be used to store desirable chemicals, enzymes, surfactants, etc to trigger appropriate interactions on-demand at bottom hole condition to negate, neutralize or reduce the unwanted changes in drilling, drill-in, completion, cleaning, stimulation, fracturing, etc fluids. The three dimensional spherical configurations of nano-sized dendrimers with high specific surface area can also allow the attachment of multiple functional groups at the terminals to accomplish different functional tasks. Dendrimers with the ability to trigger on-demand interaction by releasing stored chemicals, enzymes or surfactant stored in the cavities can play a pivotal role in developing an intelligent drilling fluid system to provide instantaneous solution to down hole problems. Due to nano-scale dimension, dendrimers may provide effective external and internal inhibition to reactive shale surfaces leading to long-term stabilization of reactive shales. The tiny size and high surface area of dendritic materials will also provide superior fluid properties at a drastically reduced additive concentration.
Dendrimers and dendritic polymers with high thermal stability and affinity to acid gases such as H2S and CO2 will help overcome the technical challenges of geothermal and sour gas drilling operations for a safe, risk-free and economic drilling operation. This paper describes some applications of emerging dendrimers and dendritic polymer-based additives in the development of high performance drilling and drill-in, completion, stimulation, etc fluids for trouble-free drilling, completion and production operations in challenging environments.
