Synthesis and performance evaluation of a water-soluble copolymer as high-performance fluid loss additive for water-based drilling fluid at high temperature

Abstract

Drilling fluids are widely used in the drilling of deep wells to clean and transport the rock cuttings, maintain the sidewall of oil well, lubricate and cool the drilling bit, and control the formation pressures. The present work aims at improving the high-temperature resistance of water-based drilling fluid by using the newly synthesized fluid loss additive named PAASD. This copolymer was obtained through the solution polymerization of four kinds of monomers. The synthesis conditions with the optimal API filtration were studied by single synthetic experiment, and the chemical structure of final product was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy. The target product was carried out with thermal stability analysis, rheological property, filtrate property, temperature resistant capacity, salt tolerance capacity, micro-crosslink structure property, particle size distribution and the compatibility performance experiment. The results showed that PAASD was an efficient fluid loss additive, and the API filtration of fresh water drilling fluid containing 2% PAASD was only 5.2 mL, it was 10.6 mL after aging at the condition of 200°C and 16 h. Besides, PAASD has a good thermal stability, salt tolerance, and it could improve the rheological property of drilling fluid system obviously. Therefore, it could be used as fluid loss additive of water-based drilling fluid in salty and high-temperature environment.