Experimental Inspection of the Influence of Chemical Osmosis on Shale Swelling and Subsequent Wellbore Stability
Publication: Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 149, Issue 5
Abstract
Linear swelling and gravimetric ions and water uptake tests were experimentally conducted to examine the effectiveness of osmotically extracting water out of shale in the presence of dilute and concentrated salt solutions. In addition, vast data on shale’s membrane efficiency were collected from the literature to aid in this work. The main findings of this study confirmed that water transported into shale by diffusion osmosis may negate the benefits of water extraction out of shale by chemical osmosis. This is in line with previously reported results which suggested that shale acts as a nonideal leaky semipermeable membrane which allows ions to pass through. In addition, it was shown that shale swelling could occur due to diffusion osmosis and may dominate the swelling behavior of shale when it interacts with concentrated solutions. It was also shown that ion type and concentration could affect the amount of swelling that may be experienced by shale when exposed to salt solutions. Data from this work recommends incorporating dilute salt solutions in the make-up of drilling fluids to ensure that water extraction out of shale by chemical osmosis overtakes water flow into shale by diffusion osmosis. In addition, a critical salt concentration must be determined above which diffusion osmosis becomes dominant. The findings of this study can help us better understand the interaction between shale and drilling fluids and to improve drilling fluids design.
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Data Availability Statement
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 149 • Issue 5 • October 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 23, 2023
Accepted: Jun 6, 2023
Published online: Aug 4, 2023
Published in print: Oct 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jan 4, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Biological processes
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Construction engineering
- Construction methods
- Diffusion
- Diffusion (chemical)
- Diffusion (fluid)
- Drilling
- Engineering mechanics
- Environmental engineering
- Geology
- Geotechnical engineering
- Membranes
- Osmosis
- Rocks
- Salt water
- Shale
- Structural engineering
- Structural members
- Structural systems
- Thermodynamics
- Transport phenomena
- Waste management
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
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