ABSTRACT
Natural hematite (Fe2O3) has been employed as an alternative weighting material to barite (Ba2SO4) for drilling uids in several Venezuelan elds. Hematite has shown some physicochemical advantages over barite: a higher specic gravity and solubility in acid media and lower attrition rate. However, the most challenging issue related to hematite eld applications has been to reduce its high wear potential. Previous research, whose results were validated on eld tests with drilling uids formulated with hematite, showed that the abrasion and erosion rates produced by hematite decreased with decrease of particle size and also depend on the morphology and angularity of the particle relative to barite. The objective of this work was to study the adsorption of surfactant molecules on hematite particles and its inuence over the wear behavior of hematite particles on water-based drilling uids. The ultimate goal was of developing new lubricant and wear-reducing additives to improve the performance of waterbased drilling uids. The results showed that the surfactant system studied adsorbs on hematite particles and this adsorption was inuenced by the pH of the solution. Additionally, the results obtained in the abrasive test suggest that this property of the surfactant could be related to the wear reduction of hematite in this system. But it was necessary to perform additional laboratory tests to nd a clear correlation between these parameters.
