Synthesis and application of mesoporous silica nanoparticles as gas migration control additive in oil and gas cement

Cement failure has been widely reported to be one of the major causes of many catastrophic accidents in the oil and gas industry. Lack of cement integrity and strength has been associated with the potentially harmful gas migration from the reservoir into the wellbore. In this study, the potential application mesoporous silica nanoparticles as gas migration control additive for oil and gas cement was evaluated. Here, mesoporous silica nanoparticles were prepared using micelle templating sol-gel method and its performance as the additive was assessed against the commercial micro- and nano-sized silica particles. Based on the result, it is revealed that all of the cement samples prepared with or without additives exhibited sufficient rheological properties for field application. Nonetheless, results showed that silica nanoparticles addition would result in a slight increase in viscosity and yield point reduction of the cement slurry. Further investigations suggested that silica nanoparticles could also accelerate the hydration process due to their ability to provide a large surface area for nucleation reaction and the formation of C–S–H seeds. As a result, this would lead to the creation of a denser and stronger cement structure, which exhibits low porosity and permeability features. According to the result, the most optimum formulation was achieved when the cement was mixed with 0.0132 wt% of a mesoporous silica nanoparticle, with the compressive strength value of 6.67 MPa and the values of porosity and permeability of 8.94% and 2.47 × 10⁻¹⁷ m² (0.025 mD), respectively.