SBIR Phase I: Environmentally-Friendly Self-Thickening Chemicals For Improved Conformance Control

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一类新的环保和可持续的基于生物聚合物的化学品，这些化学品可以进行修改并应用于石油和天然气生产操作。 这些新的化学品利用天然聚合物的可用性，如瓜尔胶作为原料。已经证明，瓜尔胶和其他生物聚合物可以通过添加其他化学基团进行改性，以产生？绿色？聚合物分子具有更广泛的溶液性质。 这些可以包括具有自增稠或胶凝效果的能力。 这种流体应用于油气威尔斯井中，以选择性地阻止地下水的运动，从而增加烃类产量。 这种可持续的技术将取代基于使用（而不是绿色）合成聚合物的竞争性化学方法。这项研究的更广泛/商业影响是研究突破，将对增加成熟油田生产的石油量的目标应用具有直接和深远的商业潜力。 美国能源部估计，美国的这些油田仍有超过3500亿桶石油，目前无法从经济上开采。 一种新的方法，将生产一些这些被困石油廉价与环境友好的化学品将是非常有吸引力的国内能源工业。 除了石油和天然气行业的直接目标应用外，相同类型的新型环保化学品还应在其他行业中找到用途。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a new class of environmentally-friendly and sustainable biopolymer-based chemistries that can be modified and applied in oil and gas production operations. These new chemistries take advantage of the availability of natural polymers such as guar as a feedstock. It already has been demonstrated that guar and other biopolymers may be modified by adding other chemical groups to create ?green? polymer molecules with a broader range of solution properties. These may include the ability to have a self-thickening or gelling effect. Such fluids are applied in oil and gas wells to block selectively movement of subsurface water, thereby increasing hydrocarbon production. This sustainable technology would replace a competing chemical method based on using (not green) synthetic polymers.The broader/commercial impacts of this research are research breakthroughs that will have immediate and profound commercial potential for the target application of increasing the volume of oil produced in mature oil fields. The DOE estimates these fields in the U.S. have over 350 billion barrels of oil remaining in place that is not now recoverable economically. A new method that will produce some of this trapped oil cheaply with an environmentally-friendly chemical will be extremely attractive to the domestic energy industry. Besides the immediate target application for the oil and gas industry, the same types of new environmentally-friendly chemistries should find uses in other industries.