Coupling Effect of Temperature, Gas, and Viscoelastic Surfactant Fracturing Fluid on the Microstructure and its Fractal Characteristics of Deep Coal

The study of the microstructure evolution law of coal in a natural reservoir environment for the extraction of coalbed methane mining (ECBM), especially deep ECBM, is of major significance. We treated coal samples from Qinshui Basin under combined temperature–gas–fracturing fluid conditions and analyzed the evolution of the microstructure and its fractal characteristics to study the microstructural evolution of coal under natural hydraulic fracturing conditions. In the temperature range of 303.15 to 343.15 K and the gas-pressure range of 0.5–4.5 MPa, our data demonstrate that the pore structure is more susceptible to the temperature influence, compared with microfracture. The treatment of viscoelastic surfactant fracturing fluid (VES-FF) can effectively increase the permeation pore and fracture ratio by more than 300% and reduce the adsorption pore by more than 200% through dissolution, gas wedge, and other effects, which is favorable to ECBM. At the same temperature, as the gas pressure increases, the pore decreases, whereas the fracture ratio increases. The pore fractal dimension ranges from 2.90 to 2.99, which is significantly higher than that of microfractures. The temperature has a minor effect on the fracture fractal dimension, but it causes a decrease in the pore fractal dimension. The treatment of VES-FF induces an increase in the fracture fractal dimension, implying an increase in the fractal complexity. In contrast, the pore fractal characteristics show a contrary trend. At a gas pressure of 4.5 MPa, the negative effect of VES-FF on the pore structure reaches its maximum, whereas the effect on the fracture drops to its minimum. The results document that high temperature and high gas pressure can severely limit the penetration enhancement effect of VES-FF.