Basic Technological Features of Production and Performance Evaluation of Proppants used in oil and gas production by hydraulic fracturing

Abstract

The results of studies of the structure, phase composition, and mechanical and chemical properties of aluminosilicate, magnesia-quartz, and glass-ceramic proppants (RosProp, BorProp, ForeRCP, Wauli, etc.) are reported. It is shown that glass-ceramic proppants outperform ceramic analogs because a highly efficient method of dispersing a melt jet into droplets is used to spherize the particles and because of the structural features manifested in the formation of a homogeneous dense material represented by microcrystals with pyroxene composition.