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Minimizing loss of injected hydraulic fracturing fluids into shale along fracture-matrix boundaries is desired because imbibed water restricts gas production and wastes valuable water resources. This problem has motivated the addition of surfactants into water-based hydraulic fracturing fluids in order to reduce the capillary driving force for imbibition. Here, we show that reduction in interfacial tension and wettability alteration has negligible ability to reduce imbibition in deep gas reservoirs. The effectiveness of altering capillary forces acting at the wetting front also depends on the injection pressure acting at the fracture-matrix boundary. The pressure at the interface between the fracture and the shale matrix is constrained between the reservoir pore pressure and formation pressure (rock fracture pressure, also known as breakdown pressure of the rock) and increases with depth to magnitudes that greatly exceed that of capillary pressures. The analyses presented here show that even maximum alteration of interfacial properties that result in strongly hydrophobic interactions between the fracturing fluid and reservoir rock is incapable of significantly reducing imbibition in deep reservoirs. Instead of using surfactants, this analysis points to decreases in wellbore shut-in pressures and shut-in times as practical options for reducing imbibition losses of water-based fluids.

To guarantee the flow assurance of drilling fluid in deep-water drilling, the inhibitory effect of PVP-K90 on methane hydrate formation was measured at 275.15 and 277.15 K with an initial pressure ...

This study aims to understand the interactions among SiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) and the main chemical constituents of bentonite-free water-based mud, including CaCO3 and xanthan gum. To this end, bot...

With increasing intensified environmental pressure and a complex drilling environment, developing high-performance fluid loss additives with environmental acceptability is becoming a research focus...

This comprehensive review paper compares the different methods developed experimentally to produce hydrogen by reacting aluminum and water. The alumina oxide layer which forms on the exterior surfa...

Barite settling is one of the common drilling fluid issues encountered while drilling deep wells. In this study, the effect of perlite on the properties and stability of water-based drilling fluid was investigated. Perlite is an inexpensive additive used in different industrial applications such as bricks, concrete, thermal insulators, sludge absorbents, fillers, tiles, ruminants, and poultry. Perlite additive was also introduced to the oil industry in drilling applications as an effective fluid loss control agent to reduce the drilling fluid invasion into the formations. Perlite was added to the drilling fluid in various concentrations, ranging between 0 and 3.0 lb/bbl. The sag test was performed to assess the drilling fluid's stability under dynamic and static conditions at a temperature of 120/250 °F. Then, the impact of perlite on the properties of drilling fluid was assessed by measuring the density and pH at room temperature. While the rheological, viscoelastic, and filtration properties were evaluated at 250 °F. This study showed that an increase in perlite concentration, from 0 to 3 lb/bbl, slightly reduced the pH of the drilling mud; however, all of the values were within the acceptable pH range (9-11). In contrast, this concentration of perlite had an immeasurable impact on drilling fluid density. Perlite enhanced the drilling fluid's homogeneity and stability by reducing the dynamic and static sag factors, and 3.0 lb/bbl perlite was adequate to eliminate barite sag at a temperature up to 250 °F. Perlite was found to be effective in improving the rheological and viscoelastic properties. A significant enhancement of filtration properties was observed by the reduction in filtrate volume and filter cake thickness by 64 and 31%, respectively.

Popular ruthenium sensitizer (RuP) and ruthenium catalyst (RuOEC) are studied in the cosensitized configurations of a dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cell with several frequently used electroly...

The capture of toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and ammonia (NH3) can mitigate widespread air pollution. An emerging class of adsorbents known as metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) offer high ...

Thermoresponsive nonionic block copolymers, methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (MPEG-b-PNIPAM), were investigated as chemical aids for the water-based oil sands extraction ...

The energy industry is exploring sustainable chemistry and engineering solutions for exploitation of shale reservoirs. Smectite-rich shale is challenging to drill with traditional water-based drill...

Cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) with nanoscale dimension, high aspect ratio, and easily modified surface chemistry show great potential as novel rheological and filtration modifiers in bentonite water-...

Bacterial colonization poses significant health risks, such as infestation of surfaces in biomedical applications and clean water unavailability. If maintaining the surrounding water clean is a target, developing surfaces with strong bactericidal action, which is facilitated by bacterial access to the surface and mixing, can be a solution. On the other hand, if sustenance of a surface free of bacteria is the goal, developing surfaces with ultralow bacterial adhesion often suffices. Here we report a facile, scalable, and environmentally benign strategy that delivers customized surfaces for these challenges. For bactericidal action, nanostructures of inherently antibacterial ZnO, through simple immersion of zinc in hot water, are fabricated. The resulting nanostructured surface exhibits extreme bactericidal effectiveness (9250 cells cm–2 h–1) that eliminates bacteria in direct contact and also remotely through the action of reactive oxygen species. Remarkably, the remote bactericidal action is achieved without the need for any illumination, otherwise required in conventional approaches. As a result, ZnO nanostructures yield outstanding water disinfection of >99.98%, in the dark, by inactivating the bacteria within 3 h. Moreover, Zn2+ released to the aqueous medium from the nanostructured ZnO surface have a concentration of 0.73 ± 0.15 ppm, markedly below the legal limit for safe drinking water (5–6 ppm). The same nanostructures, when hydrophobized (through a water-based or fluorine-free spray process), exhibit strong bacterial repulsion, thus substantially reducing bacterial adhesion. Such environmentally benign and scalable methods showcase pathways toward inhibiting surface bacterial colonization. ISSN:1520-5045 ISSN:0888-5885

Exploring deep and ultradeep wells has rapidly become more significant to meet the global demand for oil and gas. The study of rheological and filtration-loss properties is essential to designing drilling muds and determining their performance under operational conditions. Rheological and filtration-loss properties of drilling muds were found to have a negative impact when exposed to elevated temperatures in the wells. In this study, an amphoteric polymer (abbreviated to PEX) was synthesized and characterized using a combination of analyses: FTIR, SEM, 13CNMR, and TGA. The synthesized PEX was used as an additive in water-based drilling muds to improve rheological properties and reduce fluid loss at elevated temperatures (180–220 °C). The experimental results demonstrated that inclusion of an optimal concentration of PEX (0.3 wt %) into the drilling mud formulation increased the rheological properties by 62.3% and decreased the filtration loss by 63.5% at an aging temperature of 180 °C. Moreover, PEX was found to perform superbly compared to polyanionic cellulose (PAC-LV) and polyacrylamide (PAM), the widely used drilling mud additives. PEX not only improved the rheological properties and reduced the filtration loss behavior but also bolstered the thermostability of the drilling mud formulation. It was concluded that the rigidity and amphoteric nature of PEX accounted for the exceptional performance and temperature resistance for PEX-drilling mud formulations. Succinctly, PEX exhibits admirable properties in smart drilling mud formulations for drilling operations under high-temperature geothermal conditions. Moreover, in terms of rheological models, the Herschel–Bulkley model adequately described the rheological properties of all the studied drilling mud formulations.

Primary oil recovery from fractured unconventional formations, such as shale or tight sands, is typically less than 10%. The development of an economically viable enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techni...

The properties including oil content, density, high viscosity, and corresponding components were analyzed in the samples of the oil-contaminated soil from one country in the Middle East; also, chem...

Corrosion and friction undulation caused by water-lubricated mechanical devices severely restricts the development of water-based lubricant in practical industries. In this paper, a kind of triazin...

The hydration and swelling of shale formations are serious problems for well drilling. The use of an efficient shale inhibitor is one of the most important methods for overcoming the wellbore insta...

Various water-based drilling fluids (WBDFs) are increasingly being used in oil and gas exploitation, for more environmentally acceptable and low-cost advantages than oil-based drilling fluids (OBDF...

Ultrathin silver nanowires (UTAgNWs) are indispensable to achieve transparent conductive films (TCFs) with overall optoelectronic performance exceeding that of the state-of-the-art indium tin oxide films. Impurities in raw UTAgNW products severely impair the optical properties of TCFs. Unfortunately, highly effective and environment-friendly approaches for purification of UTAgNWs are still lacking. Herein, we report the purification of UTAgNWs using deionized water along with a small amount of surfactants as the purifying agent. TCFs coated with the purified UTAgNWs exhibit a light transmittance of 97.9% and a haze of 1.22% at a sheet resistance of 36.3 Ω sq

Two most widely used commercial water-based binders, polyacrylic latex (LA133) and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose/styrene butadiene rubber (CMC/SBR), are utilized for constructing sulfur cathodes t...

Improving the tribological properties of water by adding nanomaterials as water-based lubricant additive has garnered increasing interest for the great potential in range of water-based application...

Black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets with unique biocompatibility and superior optical performance have attracted enormous attention in material science. However, their instability and poor solution-processability severely limit their clinical applications. In this work, we demonstrate the use of silk fibroin (SF) as an exfoliating agent to produce thin-layer BP nanosheets with long-term stability and facile solution-processability. Presence of SF prevents rapid oxidation and degradation of the resultant BP nanosheets, enhancing their performance in physiological environment. The SF-modified BP nanosheets exhibit subtle solution-processability and are fabricated into various BP-based material formats. As superior photothermal agents, BP-based wound dressings effectively prevent bacterial infection and promote wound repair. Therefore, this work opens new avenues for unlocking current challenges of BP nanosheet applications for practical biomedical purposes.

In this paper, an interfacial tension (IFT) correlation (i.e., Model #2) between CO2 and water is generalized as a function of their mutual solubility and the reduced pressure of CO2 in a temperature range of 278.2–469.2 K and a pressure range of 0.10–69.10 MPa. Two sets of correlation coefficients are respectively regressed for pressures lower and higher than the critical pressure of CO2 (i.e., 7.38 MPa). Such a newly developed correlation is calculated to yield an absolute average relative deviation (AARD) of 4.5%, a maximum absolute relative deviation (MARD) of 32.3%, and a maximum absolute deviation (MAD) of 1.65 mN/m, respectively. The newly developed model is found to greatly outperform the four existing correlations as a function of temperature, pressure, or CO2 solubility in water. A higher CO2 solubility in water (i.e., xCO2) leads to a lower IFT for all pressures, while a higher water solubility in the CO2 phase (i.e., yW) results in a lower IFT mainly at lower pressures. Both pressure and tempe...

The forthcoming era of sustainable development demands the utilization of naturally abundant, sustainable, biodegradable, and environmentally friendly resources for a wide variety of applications. ...

The development of water-based coating strategies has led to safe and affordable techniques with applications in various fields, whereas the design of water-based superhydrophobic coatings still needs to be improved to facilitate their large-scale production and widespread adoption. Herein, we report a novel water-based strategy that can endow smooth surfaces with superhydrophobicity by designing a multifunctional polymer and incorporating a hydrophobic nanomaterial and a selective solvent. The superhydrophobic coatings show outstanding flexibility and can be made in various colors using both hydrophobic and hydrophilic dyes. The fabrication process is scalable, and it might open up many possibilities for the preparation of water-based coatings using hydrophobic nanomaterials.

This research aims to develop low cost, sustainable, environmentally friendly, and high performance water-based drilling fluids (WDFs) using bentonite (BT), polyanionic cellulose (PAC), and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs). The effect of concentration of BT, PAC, and CNCs on the rheological and filtration properties of PAC/CNC/BT-WDFs was investigated. Eight empirical rheological models were applied to fit quantitatively the fluid properties. Results showed that the presence of PAC, CNCs, and BT improved the rheological and filtration properties of the WDFs. Among the eight empirical rheological models, the Sisko model performed the best in simulating the rheological behavior of the fluids. At the same concentration level of PAC and CNCs, CNCs had more impact on the rheological properties, whereas PAC had more influence on the filtration property. The incorporation of PAC resulted in very low permeable filter cakes, leading to the excellent filtration property. The combined use of PAC and CNCs yielded better...

We report on a facile, versatile, and environmentally friendly method to prepare superhydrophobic fabrics by a simple dip-coating method in water-based suspensions and emulsions. All the materials used are fluorine-free and commercially available at a large scale. The method can be easily integrated into standard textile industrial processes and has a strong potential for the mass production of environmentally friendly superwater-repellent fabrics. The produced fabrics show good resistance to machine washing and acidic or alkaline treatments. In addition, it is shown that superhydrophobicity can be quantitatively predicted based on the combination of the roughness of the fabric and of the fiber coating.

This paper proposes an environmentally friendly method involving water-based extraction of the samples, cleanup of the extracts by solid-phase extraction, and subsequent liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry, which was used for simultaneous determination of seven hydrophilic neonicotinoid insecticides as well as their metabolites in agricultural samples. The effects of sample matrix on detection of the target compounds were negligibly small. Mean recoveries obtained at spiked concentrations between 0.01 and 1.00 mg/kg were 71.2-122.3% with relative standard deviations of ≤ 7.5%. When the method was applied to crop samples sprayed with commercial formulations of the target compounds, the residual concentrations of the compounds determined by the proposed method (0.015-0.27 mg/kg in green peppers and 0.017-0.31 mg/kg in tomatoes) were equivalent to those determined by the official Japanese method (0.017-0.26 mg/kg in green peppers and 0.013-0.30 mg/kg in tomatoes).

The understanding of the interaction of water with mineral surfaces is fundamental for the description of solid–liquid interface reactions such as adsorption and desorption of solutes in natural an...

The development of a convenient method for the removal (or collection) of oils and organic solvents from water surface is of great significance for water environmental protection, especially for the cleanup of oil spillage on seawater. A major challenge is the fabrication of an oil absorber with high absorption capacity, low cost, scalable fabrication, high selectivity, and excellent recyclability. In this paper, we present a simple method for the removal and collection of oils and organic solvents from the surfaces of water based on superhydrophobic and superoleophilic sponges that were fabricated by solution-immersion processes. The as-prepared sponges fast and selectively absorbed various kinds of oils up to above 13 times the sponges’ weight while completely repelling water through a combination of porous, superhydrophobic, and superoleophilic properties. More interesting, the absorbed oils were readily collected by a simple mechanical squeezing process, and the recovered sponges could be reused in oi...

In the present work, a novel chemical reduction followed by calcination at considerably low temperature is used to synthesize copper oxide decorated graphene (CuO/HEG). Graphene has been synthesized via hydrogen induced exfoliation/reduction of graphite oxide. As-synthesized graphene is functionalized in acid medium to decorate copper oxide nanoparticles as well as to disperse it in polar medium. CuO/HEG is dispersed in deionized (DI) water and ethylene glycol without any surfactant, and the thermal transport properties of those nanofluids are studied. Thermal conductivity of CuO/HEG dispersed in DI water based nanofluid shows an enhancement of ?28% at 25 AC for a volume fraction of 0.05%. In addition to thermal conductivity, the electrical conductivity of the nanofluids is also measured for different volume fractions at different temperatures. Heat transfer coefficient is measured in an indigenously fabricated setup for different volume fractions for different flow rates. � 2011 American Chemical Society.

The effect of increased sulfate concentration in the imbibing water during oil recovery by spontaneous imbibitions in different outcrop chalks at various wettability conditions at 130 °C has been determined. Core plugs from three chalk outcrops, Rordal, Niobrara, and Stevns, were aged in crude oil and included in this study. Stevns chalk exhibited increased oil recovery during spontaneous imbibition with increased concentration of sulfate in the imbibing water phase. The effect was less than reported by others and was wettability dependent. Spontaneous imbibition tests showed that the added oil recovery was greatest at Amott water indices below 0.2, and tests at and above 0.25 showed only minor effects from sulfate. Niobrara and Rordal chalk did not show increased oil recovery with increased sulfate concentration in the brine. These core plugs reflected more water-wet imbibition characteristics at elevated temperature, and the effect of sulfate could not be isolated. Measurements of Amott water indices be...

Replacing solvent-based paints with greener, water-based counterparts sounds nice, but the performance of those alternatives just doesn’t cut it for demanding applications in the furniture or automotive industry. Now, researchers have come up with a waterborne coating that behaves more like a solvent-based paint. In a refreshing twist, the solvent is carbonated water. Unlike environmentally harmful oil- or solvent-based paints, in which the film-forming polymer that coats a surface starts fully dissolved, water-based latex paints are a suspension of microparticles. “In theory those particles are supposed to merge together to make a continuous film, but they don’t do it very well,” says Philip G. Jessop, who led the work. It’s hard to get a glossy finish with latex paints, and the coatings are damage prone. To make their new paint, Jessop, graduate student Jaddie Ho, and their colleagues at Queen’s University started with a carbon dioxide-responsive polymer (Green Chem. 2018

A stable water-based polystyrene nano-saponite composite suspension was synthesized via miniemulsion polymerization. The stability of the suspension and the intercalation degree of clay were strong...

Crop-protection compounds are useful tools that enhance the quality of the food we enjoy. However, crop-protection products can enter aquatic systems either by direct or by indirect application. To better understand the possible frequency and magnitude of exposure to water resources, the regulatory community has developed a set of relatively straightforward models for estimating exposure to these water systems. The focus of this research was to compare how well the estimates of exposure to drinking water based on model calculations relate to actual monitoring data. Physical/chemical property data were entered in the EPA's exposure model FIRST and into PRZM/EXAMS. The predictions from FIRST and PRZM/EXAMS were then compared to actual monitoring data from a USGS/EPA cooperative program, which monitored for pesticides in vulnerable surface drinking water supplies during 1999 and 2000. Results from this examination indicate the exposure from the models can overpredict concentrations found in water by several orders of magnitude. An overprediction factor is presented that corrects model predictions to more closely approximate concentrations found in reservoirs (p = 0.05).

An investigation into the relationship between surface microstructure and optical properties of matte water-based lacquer is presented, and a model describing this relationship in terms of the packing of silica matting agent is tested. This model assumes that, at some critical concentration, the silica structure in the film-formed lacquer is similar to that found in the dry powder. Above this critical concentration, an increase in surface roughness is expected, which is related to the reflectance of the lacquer. The lacquer surface is accessed via environmental scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, and the results are related to the model described and the reflectance measured. The reflectance is found to be inversely related to the surface roughness. The prediction for increase in surface roughness above the critical silica concentration is shown to be valid for robust precipitated silicas with large (10 μm) aggregate particles. Smaller 2 μm aggregate particles show a much reduced sur...

This study is directed at determining the influence of cross-linking on the physical properties of a water-based nonstick hydrophobic coating. The extent of cross-linking was determined using FT-IR spectroscopy and correlated with important surface properties of the coatings: surface hydrophobicity (contact angle hysteresis of water), friction, and hardness. It was found that the contact angle hysteresis of water decreases with increasing cross-linking, achieving a constant value of 20−25° at 40−50% of cross-linking. Although the coefficient of friction is independent of the extent of cross-linking, the scratch hardness of the coating increases with the extent of cross-linking.

PEGs were immobilized onto a poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel using either acetal or urethane linkages. The hydrogel was crosslinked with glutaraldehyde using MgCl 2 (water based) or toluenesulfonic acid (DMSO based) as the acid catalyst. Fully hydrated gels prepared from DMSO had a lower compression modulus than those prepared from water although both materials possessed similar water contents.

The analysis of aqueous ozone was studied by a colorimetric method that uses the reaction between ozone and bis(terpyridine)iron(II), Fe(terpy)/sub 2//sup 2 +/, in dilute hydrochloric acid solution. The ozone concentrations were determined from the change in absorption spectra of Fe(terpy)/sub 2//sup 2 +/ at concentrations as low as 10/sup -6/ M (0.05 mg/L) with an accuracy and precision of better than +/-3%. Direct comparisons with the Indigo method and UV spectrophotometric measurements are presented.