A polyacrylamide hydrogel for application at high temperature and salinity tolerance in temporary well plugging

In addition to conventional approach to ensure the successful application of polymer hydrogels in maintaining temporary well plugging, exact analysis of gel formation and gel strength properties in wellbore are necessary. In this work, bottles and rheology tests are used to investigate the polymer hydrogel gelation time and cross-linking kinetics of sol–gel systems which consist of polyacrylamide and chromium acetate hydroxide as a cross-linker. The effects of temperature of 90 °C and pressure of 3000 psi (typical Iranian oil well condition) were studied in relation to gelation time, strength and the mechanical properties of the hydrogel. The average molecular weight of the polymer chains between cross-link ties was evaluated using an oil-well laboratory system and compressive strength test. Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analysis of dried gel and the effect of temperature on the kinetics of the gel swelling in different solutions such as distilled water, tap water, formation water and oil were studied. The results showed that the number of tie points between each entanglement has not much reduced under pressure. Therefore, the prepared hydrogel can maintain its chemical structure under the Iranian oil well pressure and can be proposed to field studies. The degree of sol–gel reaction of prepared hydrogel and the activation energy based on the Arrhenius equation were calculated to be 1.5 and 274 kJ/mol, respectively.