Reinforcing oil wells with polymer and graphene nanoribbons - Materials Today
Wellbores drilled to extract oil and gas can be dramatically reinforced with a material produced by adding a small amount of modified graphene nanoribbons to a polymer and microwaving it, say researchers from Rice University.
The Rice labs of chemist James Tour and civil and environmental engineer Rouzbeh Shahsavari combined the nanoribbons with an oil-based thermoset polymer intended to make wells more stable and to cut production costs. When cured in place with low-power microwaves emanating from the drill assembly, the composite could plug the microscopic fractures that can allow drilling fluid to seep through and destabilize the walls of the well. The results of this study are reported in a paper in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
