Study the effect of synthesized graft copolymer on the inhibitive water based drilling fluid system

This research paper consists of the synthesis of carboxymethyl-graft-polyacrylamide copolymer by free radical polymerization technique and its characterization using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and thermogravimetric analysis. This graft copolymer was used as a drilling fluid additive and its effect on the Indian reactive shale sample was analyzed. The characterization of the shale sample used in this study was done by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), FTIR, FESEM, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) to determine the presence of various clay minerals. Experimental investigations revealed that the synthesized graft copolymer has a significant effect on the rheological and filtration properties of the inhibitive drilling fluid system and has high shale recovery performance. Hence, inhibitive drilling fluid system using synthesized graft copolymer may be used for the drilling of water sensitive shale formations.