A Study on a New Type of High-Performance Resin-Coated Sand for Petroleum Fracturing Proppants

Abstract

This study investigates a new type of high-performance coated sand as a petroleum fracturing proppant material. Modified quartz sand was coated with a layer of low-density resin to reduce the overall density of the proppant, thereby improving the suspension of the proppant in the fracturing fluid. Resins play an important role in the preparation of coated sand fracturing proppants. The mechanism of sand formation was studied by examining the phase composition and microstructure of the coated sand proppant. The results demonstrate that when the polyimide resin content is 6% and the curing temperature is 180 °C, the proppant exhibited the best performance with an apparent density of 1.592 g/cm3 and a breakage ratio of only 3.22% under 55.2 MPa. Compared with the widely used epoxy resin-coated support agent and phenolic resin-coated support agent in the early stage, their crushing rate decreased by 5% and their acid solubility decreased by 2%. Hence, this study is worthy of attention.