A Novel Nanosilica-Based Solution for Enhancing Mechanical and Rheological Properties of Oil Well Cement

The main purposes of employing cement in oil wells are to isolate the zones within formations, secure casing from axial loading and corrosion and improve wellbore integrity. There are plenty of nanomaterials represented in the literature which were introduced to cement in order to advance the strength and rheological properties of cement slurry. The objective of this study is to propose a novel nanomaterial which can upgrade the mechanical and rheological properties of cement. The smaller the size of Nano-particles, the higher surface area and hence higher efficiency they possess to advance particular properties of the support material. Bio-templating has been offered as an approach to reduce the size of utilized nanoparticles. In this study, Nanosilica particles were synthesized and functionalized using modified sol-gel method. Bio-templating was then implemented through crosslinking of the procured Nanosilica with soluble egg protein using glutaraldehyde. In order to investigate the effect of bio-templated Nanosilica on cement slurry, synthesized Nanosilica was added to cement and rheological and mechanical experiments were conducted. To validate the performed bio-templating, ATR-FTIR spectrum was acquired which confirmed successful crosslinking between the functionalized Nanosilica and SEP. Furthermore, experimental tests were conducted to evaluate the effect of bio-templated Nanosilica on mechanical and rheological properties of neat cement. The results were then compared to inclusion of commercial Nanosilica in cement. Through the rheological studies, it was found that the modified Nanosilica has acted as dispersant in cementitious system by decreasing the plastic viscosity of cement and maintaining the density. It was also obtained that novel bio-templated Nanosilica has significantly increased uniaxial compressive strength of cementitious system by 16.59% upon addition of only 0.25 wt.%. It was due to its pozzolanic reaction in cement and its pore filling effect where the porosity of cementitious system was decreased. The proposed synthesized Nanosilica demonstrates superior results than commercial Nanosilica which shows its remarkable efficiency in cement strength reinforcement and rheological properties improvement. The research study has successfully proposed a novel method to utilize biomaterial waste in the process of synthesizing Nanosilica particles which is not only environmental friendly but also yields in phenomenal rheological and mechanical properties of Class G cement.