Artificial ceramic proppant strengths and weaknesses

Artificial ceramic proppant advantages:

Synthetic  Proppant  relatively high density, closed at the same pressure, compared with the  frac sand  has a crushing rate, a high conductivity performance. Especially at high closing pressures can provide some diversion ability to complete fracturing stimulation tasks;
Synthetic proppant with salt, heat resistance, at 150 ~ 200 ℃ with 10% brine compressive strength after aging 240h unchanged; solution at 280 ℃ PH value of 11 and under the conditions of aging 72h, pottery grain weight loss of 3.5% and about 50% quartz sand is dissolved;
With the closure pressure increase or extension of time by pressing, ceramic crushing rate much lower than the quartz sand, diversion capacity decline rate should be much slower. Therefore, any depth, any reservoir, the use of ceramic proppant fracturing water conservancy will receive a higher initial yield, stable yield and longer valid.

Artificial  Ceramic proppant  disadvantages:
Synthetic proppant relative particle density is high, such as: quartz sand 2.60 g/cm3 ~ 2.70 g/cm3, while the ceramic sand was 2.80 g/cm3 ~ 3.60 g/cm3. Therefore, the fracturing fluid properties (such as viscosity, rheological, etc.) and pumping conditions (such as displacement, power equipment, etc.) are put forward higher requirements.
Ceramic proppant particles relative density and compressive strength are dependent on material in the aluminum oxide content. With the aluminum oxide content increased, the density of ceramic increased compressive strength also increases, so the two should get a balance. On the other hand, the aluminum content of the material under the same conditions, processing (powder fineness, strength semi-sintering temperature) is the key to the quality control of the ceramic. Therefore, the ceramic material selection and manufacturing process than other proppants are demanding much more complex.