Improvement of Thermal Conductivity Properties of Drilling Fluid by CuO Nanofluid

In a recent decade, application of nanofluid as a candidate for heat transfer medium has gaining an increasing attention due to its unique advantages. In the light of its unique advantages, it has been utilized in different industries such as oil and gas industries. In this work aims at improving thermal conductivity of the water-based drilling fluid by using the CuO nanofluid additive. CuO nanoparticle is synthesized by precipitation method and CuO nanofluid was produced to use as an additive to drilling fluid. Scanning electron microscope, x-ray diffraction, dynamic light scatering, sedimentation test and zeta-potential are used to characterize nanoparticle and nanofluid. The result indicated that the size of synthesized nanoparticles and nanofluid were about 4 nm and 34 nm, respectively. Finally CuO nanofluid added into drilling fluid to measure the improvement of drilling fluid thermal conductivity. The result shows that the nanofluid concentration in the range of 0.1 to 0.3 vol% is able to enhance the thermal conductivity of drilling fluid to 29 % and decrease the temperature gradient more than twice compare with the base drilling fluid.