18 JPT • SEPTEMBER 2010

In his seminal lecture, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” given at the 1959 annual meeting of the American Physical Society, American physicist Richard Feynman posed the possibility of direct manipulation of single atoms as a form of synthetic chemistry more powerful than the methods in use at the time. His revolutionary ideas were an invitation to enter a new field of physics, describing a set of challenges and possible solutions that would later be realized in the fields of microelectronics, microelectromechanical systems, microbiology, and be stretched even further by nanotechnology (a term introduced much later by Norio Taniguchi of the Tokyo Science University in 1974).

Carbon nanotechnology, made famous by the discovery of the buckyball (carbon sphere) in 1985, moved apace through the 1990s with the devel-opment of carbon nanotubes and, in the last few years, has experienced an exponential increase in research activities with graphene-based structures. Graphene, extracted from graphite, is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms, arranged in a honeycomb-style lattice pattern. Because of its unique electrical, magnetic, and other properties, graphene has grown central to much of the research into nanotechnology.

Today, there are some ambitious programs under way in the E&P sector exploring nanosensors and even nanorobots, but I would like to focus on car-bon nanotechnology research as it relates to commercially available products and its near-term impact across many product lines.

At first glance, it might not seem obvious why nanotechnology is relevant to our industry. But the challenges in frontier areas such as deep water, uncon-ventional hydrocarbons, and high-pressure/high-temperature applications nearly all have complex material and chemistry gaps that must be addressed to provide reliable technology solutions for these environments. In some cases, no solutions exist with the standard tool kit—so we enter the domain of the molecular designer or nanotechnologist.

So what are the basics of nanotechnology research? A nanometer (nm) is one-billionth (10−9) of a meter. A working definition of nano is “the purpose-ful engineering of matter at scales of less than 100 nanometers to achieve size-dependent properties and functions.” The enormous potential for carbon nanotechnology in the oil field lies largely in the design or modification of materials using the combination of the unique physical properties of the build-ing blocks with the added chemical flexibility of benzyne-type systems (highly reactive organic species). For example, a carbon nanotube has: (1) a mechani-cal strength 100 times stronger than steel; (2) a mechanical modulus 100,000 times stiffer than steel; (3) an electrical conductivity similar to copper; and (4) a thermal conductivity approximately 2.5 times greater than diamond. Not a bad initial specification list.

Many of our early research activities focused on a “pixie dust” approach, sprin-kling commercially available carbon nanotube structures (which, believe it or not, can be bought on the Internet) into elastomer and coating mixes to enhance material properties. Processing these systems has been a huge challenge. Some results, while promising, were erratic and difficult to reproduce. Over the past

GUEST EDITORIAL

Nanotechnology: Coming of Age or Heralding a New Age? Derek Mathieson, President, Products and Technology, Baker Hughes

Derek Mathieson was named pres-ident, Products and Technology, for Baker Hughes in 2009. He joined Baker Hughes in December 2008 as vice president of Technology. He was formerly chief executive officer (CEO) for WellDynamics, a provider of intelligent completion technology to the upstream oil industry. Before his appointment as CEO in 2007, he led WellDynamics’ reliability assur-ance and R&D functions and then served as vice president of Technology, Business Development, and Marketing. Previously, he was employed by Shell UK Exploration & Production in its advanced completions technology group. Earlier in his career, he worked for Wood Group in the UK. Mathieson holds a PhD in microelectromechanical systems from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

2 years, we have targeted our efforts on “functionalization” of carbon struc-tures to create molecular appendages that facilitate modification of the base materials and fluids in a controlled and repeatable way. The results so far have been dramatically better and hold promise as stepping stones toward the creation of next-generation materials.

For example, one of our commer-cial fines-fixing agents uses the high surface force of a special solid mate-rial manufactured to nanometer par-ticle size to capture or fixate forma-tion fines. The nano-sized material, shown to retain 20 times its weight of simulated formation fines, is added to hydraulic-fracture proppant packs or gravel packs on the fly to stabilize for-mation fines. The nanoparticles work by catching and retaining fine forma-tion particles at the point of contact with the gravel or proppant. This action prevents fines from migrating into or through the gravel or prop-pant pack where plugging could occur near the wellbore or at the sand-con-trol screen.

Nanotechnology is highly interdis-ciplinary—a vibrant blend of phys-ics, surface science, and chemistry—which in itself presents a challenge to our existing product-development protocol. Real commercial progress depends as much on bringing togeth-er research communities across our product lines, building new modeling tools, new laboratory techniques, and manufacturing capability as it does on the fundamental research itself. In our completions-technology group alone, we now have more than a dozen PhD and post-doctoral chemists, several PhD material scientists, and even a quantum physicist—all working on nano. Their mantra is “new product development rooted in fundamental science,” and they are providing novel approaches to many engineering chal-lenges faced by our design engineers today. The implications are profound in terms of the skill-set mix that may be required in our technical functions as we consider our resource and train-ing plans for the next decade.

The title of this column poses the question of whether this technology is coming of age or whether it is herald-ing a new, revolutionary age of inno-

vation. With two products already commercialized from our R&D activi-ties in the last year alone, the revolu-tion may have already begun. JPT

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