The high temperatures and corrosive chemical environments found in geothermal wells commonly causes the cement lining the wells to fail, requiring expensive production shutdowns and repairs. We have demonstrated that crosslinked epoxies with self-healing functionality can be added to typical geothermal cements, maintaining acceptable rheological properties in the slurry phase and mechanical properties in the resulting polymer-cement composite materials. In addition, these polymer-cement composites exhibit the ability to seal cracks, leading to permeability reductions as high as 89% after healing. In this work, the mechanical properties of these polymer-cements are further studied and compared to traditional geothermal cements, including their shear bonding to steel interfaces before and after exposure to carbon dioxide saturated brine and sulfuric acid solutions. Additional analyses of the polymer-cements will be presented, including total carbon, TGA, XRF, XANES, and XMT results of pre and post-exposure samples. Finally, work towards developing improved polymers for polymer-cement composites will be discussed.<br/>

Self-healing polymer-cement composites for geothermal wells and their properties

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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