Rice University cuts deal to research graphene-infused drilling fluids

Nano additive would improve productivity of wells

HOUSTON – (Oct. 26, 2009) – A wall of graphene a single nanometer wide could be the difference between an oil well that merely pays for itself and one that returns great profit.

Rice University and Houston-based M-I SWACO, the world's largest producer of drilling fluids for the petrochemical industry, have signed an agreement for research funds to develop a graphene additive that will improve the productivity of wells.

The company will spend $450,000 over two years for research by the lab of James Tour, Rice's Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science.

Tour's lab will work with M-I SWACO's researchers to optimize the effectiveness of graphene additives to drilling fluids, also known as muds.

Water- or oil-based muds are typically forced downhole through a drill to keep the drillhead clean and to remove cuttings as the fluid streams back up toward the surface. But the fluids themselves can clog pores in the shaft through which oil should flow.

The nanoscaled graphene additive, just a little per barrel, would be forced by the fluid's own pressure to form a thin filter cake on the shaft wall; this will prevent muds from clogging the pores.

When the fluids are removed along with the drill head, the formation pressure – that is, the pressure of the oil or gas inside the ground – would force the filter cake out through the pores and into the shaft. "When you release the hydrostatic pressure and pull the drill bit out, there's much more pressure inside the rock than in the hole," Tour said. "The filter blows out and the oil flows."