Development of Sodium Hydroxide-Activated Metakaolin with Nanocarbon Materials as Synthetic Ceramic Proppants

Abstract

The use of proppants in hydraulic fracturing has significantly grown worldwide in recent years. Discoveries of large unconventional reservoirs in the north of Brazil have collaborated to give it the 10th position among countries with the world's largest shale reserves. Nowadays, studies on nanomaterials that are used as additives in proppants are the focus of North America's companies and universities in order to develop either proppants that can suffer mechanical and chemical changes inside the reservoir or that enable their traceability and direction. This paper presents a study on synthesis and characterization of metakaolin’s based ceramic proppants incorporating different types of nanocarbon materials. The method adopted was based on use of high intensive mixing of raw material (metakaolin) granulated with alkaline water solution of dispersed carbon nanomaterials. The SEM analysis testify the carbon nanomaterials dispersion on proppant bulk structure. Mechanical tests (crush resistance or K-value) indicated that metakaolin based proppants reached similar characteristics of white sand natural proppants.