Environmentally sustainable oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion mud system for shale formation using corn oil

Abstract The search for unexplored unconventional reservoirs has intensified to meet the worlds expanding energy needs. The present research creates the first non-toxic oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion drilling fluid by combining bentonite and tragacanth gum with β-cyclodextrin as a green emulsifier and corn oil as the dispersed phase. The designed corn oil O/W emulsion mud’s rheological, filtration, and shale inhibition properties are contrasted with those of the traditional diesel oil O/W emulsion mud. The corn oil mud exhibited an excellent efficiency with a 21% improvement in rheological characteristics and a 41% decline in filtration loss volume as compared to diesel mud. The emulsion mud made of corn oil showed exceptional shear-thinning behavior as well as outstanding resistance to salt contamination. The shale dispersion and slake durability experiments were used to assess how formulated mud interacted with drill cuttings. The primary shale recovery of the maize oil mud was 88.50%, suggesting that the mud is harmless and does not interact with other materials. Likewise, the slake durability index of corn oil mud was 73.2%, suggesting exceptional inhibitive qualities in corn oil mud compared to diesel oil. According to the core flooding investigation, the proposed corn mud system (81.5%) would have a low formation damage effect compared to diesel oil mud (74.2%). The environmental evaluation of corn oil mud showed that it had a higher LC50 and no aromatic components, which indicated that it was less hazardous and more biodegradable than diesel and making it suitable for application in drilling unconventional reservoirs.