Schlumberger First to Disperse Nanosensors in Swellable Elastomers for Down Hole Oil Field Operations

In U.S. Patent 7,631,697, Schlumberger Technology Corporation (Sugar Land, TX) inventor Rashmi B. Bhavsar discloses nanosensors dispersed in swellable elastomers to sense, detect, monitor, transmit, measure, compare, collect, store, calculate and determine information on any one or more parameters useful in oilfield operations. Useful nanosensor parameters depend on the oilfield operation, but may include properties such as chemical composition, chemical reactivity, chemical moieties, physical properties (temperature, pressure), fluid mechanical properties (such as viscosity), transport phenomena coefficients and parameters (such as friction coefficients, mass transfer coefficients, diffusion coefficients, permeation coefficients, and the like), electrical properties, gas-to-liquid ratio, and any two or more of these properties.

Recently there has been a growing interest in swellable elastomers for use in oilfield applications. Oil-swellable packers are now on the market, as well as expandable zonal isolation profilers that use a water-swellable elastomer. There are reported to be water-swellable and oil-swellable packers on the market for oilfield applications, although it is not known if these packers swell in both oil and water. Other oilfield elements and tools may utilize swellable elastomers, for example, swellable elastomers and other polymers may be used in blow out preventer elements.

Nanocomposites are a relatively new class of composites that are particle-filled polymers for which at least one dimension of the dispersed particle is in the nanometer range. Because of the size of the dispersed particles, certain nanocomposites may exhibit improved mechanical, thermal, optical, and electrical properties as compared to pure polymers or conventional composites.

Although there are methods that provide improved methods for producing sensors and for detection of a particular gas and/or liquid, there is no disclosure of swellable polymeric materials comprising nanoscale sensors able to detect important downhole parameters, such as temperature and pressure. So far as is known, oilfield apparatus comprising nanosensors dispersed in a swellable elastomer have not been reported, nor their use in oilfield applications.

Common to all oilfield uses of swellable elastomers is exposure to hostile environments, such as hostile organic and inorganic chemicals, temperatures, pressures and mechanical subterranean environments that tend to unacceptably decrease the life and reliability of the swellable elastomers. There remains a need in the natural resources exploration, production, and testing field for improved data gathering capabilities to monitor and/or ascertain temperature, pressure, viscosity, pH and other data about the wellbore environment in the vicinity of a swellable elastomer

The term "nanosensor" means a material having at least one feature having nanoscale dimension. The feature of the material may be pore diameter, wire diameter, platelet length, particle mean diameter, and the like. The material may be functionalized or non-functionalized. Nanosensors may be nanowires, or functionalized nanowires.