文献名：Method for Detecting Nanoparticles on Cuttings Recovered from a Gas Reservoir

作者： Marta Antoniv, S. Sherry Zhu, Sehoon Chang, Martin E. Poitzsch, Nouf M. Jabri, Alberto Marsala, and Jeremy O’Brien

Aramco Services Company: Aramco Research Center, Boston, 400 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States

摘要：Mud logging is frequently performed during oil and gas operations for determining the position of hydrocarbons and accurately assessing the geophysical properties of the formation based on the study of returned drill cuttings. The successful application of an advanced mud logging analysis depends on an accurate determination of the depth where the drill cuttings were generated. We have envisioned an improved accuracy of cuttings’ depth assignment via labeling the drill cuttings with barcoded polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) when they are generated at the drill bit. However, the detection of NPs at sub-ppm levels in very complex and viscous drilling muds is a challenge. This paper reports a unique workflow comprising cleaning, solvent extraction, thermal separation, and pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py-GCMS) detection of polymeric NPs in the drilling mud and on the collected drill cuttings. Applying this workflow to the drill cuttings successfully removes most GCMS matrix interferences generated from the drilling mud. Our method has unambiguously detected and quantified nanograms of NPs on the cuttings recovered from a field test that probed the injection of ppm levels of the NPs into the drilling fluid while drilling a carbonate gas well.

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