Preparation And Performance Study Of Economical Ceramsite Proppant

According to the developed prospect of the proppant industry the next coming years, research a new proppant that overcome the shortcomings of quartz sand and can be applied in these oil and gas wells will be a new direction. We first come up the concept of economical ceramic proppants and prepare it by using the experiment equipments from the Changqing Company. Meanwhile we also study the relationships between its performance and internal structure.In this paper, the new ceramic proppant has been sintered using the unpressured sintering by adding three grade bauxite and sand through rational design components. Then research the sintering temperature, manganese powder, dolomite additive and compound additives how to influence the phases, microstructure and physical properties of the material. Meanwhile study the reaction mechanism of its sintering process. The results show that:(1) The sintering temperature has a greater influence on the performance of proppant. Mullite and quartz phase have formed from 1480 oC to 1510 oC. In this temperature range, the structure is compact and the properties are good.(2) According to the single factor analysis method, the manganese powder adding quantity will affect the performance of the proppant. Considering the manganese powder can reduce the sintering temperature, under the fixed sintering temperature is 1480 oC heat preservation 2h sintering. When the addition of manganese powder is 4wt% is advisable, the rod-like mullite intertwine network structure and granular quartz phases insert in the gaps. Manganese ion and mullite has formed solid solution, which lead the density increase and its physical properties are excellent.(3) Based on the sintering temperature experiment, research dolomite content under fixed sintering temperature on the properties of proppant. The best addition of the dolomite is 3wt%. When the temperature is 1480 oC, Ca O and Mg O from the additive has formed compound and liquid phase in the reaction process. It excludes the pores and promotes the sintering reaction. And the structure is very compact in this temperature. In the last experiment,(4) We add the manganese and dolomite as the additive. The results show that the properties of the ceramic proppant are good when the temperature is 1380 oC to 1420 oC. With the increasing of additives, the range of the sintering temperature drops.