Najeeb Anjum Soomro
Hydraulic fracturing fractures hydrocarbon reservoirs with fracturing fluids. These fractures facilitate the transportation of proppants in the formation, yet literature have shown that the fracturing fluid with traditional composition often leaves undesirable residues.This clogs reservoir formations, reducing water flow across hydrocarbon reservoirs. The invention of an inexpensive, environmentally friendly fracturing fluid is pushing hydraulic fracturing technology progress. VES fluid is one of the most often used hydraulic fracturing fluids for unconventional reservoir development. Because it leaves no residue after gel-breaking processing. This behaviour of residue-free after a gel breaking ensures minimal formation damage compared with the polymer0based conventional fluids. However, classic single-chain VES fluid has limited shear and temperature resistance. Two modified VES fluids were used as thickening fracturing fluids after this experiment. By joining extra single chains with hydrotropes, or ionic organic salts, non-covalent interaction was achieved. This innovative product is made by combining the long-chain cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) with organic acids citric acid (CA) and maleic acid (MA) at molar ratios of two to one and three to one, respectively. CTAB and CA create a VES-fluid with excellent fracture properties. Empirical study has shown these CTAB-based VES-fluid properties. The settling velocity of the proppant in the fluid was observed to assess the sand-carrying suspension's capacity. Core-flooding tests were used for this research. After adding ethanol, the viscosity of fractured VES-fluid was measured to determine its gel breaking ability. The investigations show that the 30 (mM) VES-fluid, also known as CTAB-CA, has the highest Visco-elasticity at pH 6.17. At zero shear rate, the fluid's apparent viscosity was 106 mPa·s. The apparent viscosity of 30 (mM) CTAB-CA VES-fluid remains at 60 (m Pa·s) at 90 °C and 170 (s − 1) after 2 h of shearing, indicating exceptional resistance to temperature and shear. At 90 degrees Celsius, the CTAB-CA VES-fluid at 30 mM displayed exceptional sand suspension and gel breaking properties. This was determined by researchers. After adding 10 to 1 ethanol, the gel broke within two hours. Gel breaking was completed at 1.67 mm/s sand suspension velocity. According to core flooding investigations, the CTAB-CA VES-fluid creates 7.99% core damage, which is not substantial. It is suggested through an experimental investigation that the CTAB-CA VES-fluid, when heated to high temperatures, will generate the novel thickening fracturing fluid.