Effects of Holding Time on Structure and the Properties of Proppants Synthesized by Adding Waste Ceramic Sands

Article source:Yuzhou Springday Industry Co., Ltd

 

In order to alleviate the shortage of high-grade bauxite resources and reduce the production cost of proppant, the corundum-mullite ceramic proppants were prepared using the second-rate bauxite as the main raw material by adding solid waste ceramic sands, while the manganese powder and dolomite are also used as the additives when the sintering temperature was 1260 ℃. In the sintering process, the effect of holding time on the structure and properties of proppants were systematically investigated. The result show that with the increasing of holding time, the needle-shaped mullite started to be formed. Meanwhile, it was turned from acicular to columnar with an increasing size. Finally, the crossing of the rod-shaped mullite and granular corundum were distributed in the ceramic proppants, which formed the compact cross-linked structure. When the holding time was kept 2 h, the proppants show outstanding mechanical properties with the breakage ratio of 8.5% under 52 MPa closure pressure and the bulk density of 1.65 g/cm 3, which accorded well with the requirements of petroleum and natural gas industry standards. Therefore, the above analysis shows that the solid waste ceramic sands can be recycled effectively to prepare proppants.