Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255

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Process Safety and Environmental Protection

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep

Experimental study on the performance of drilling fluid for coal seam

methane drainage boreholes
Kai Wang a,b,c , Zhen Lou a,b,∗ , Lianhe Guan d , Xiang Zhang a,b , Binbin Qin e , Yantao Huang a,b

a
School of Emergency Management and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
b
Beijing Key Laboratory for Precise Mining of Intergrown Energy and Resources, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China
c
Hebei State Key Laboratory of Mine Disaster Prevention, North China Institute of Science and Technology, Beijing 101601, China
d
Department of Technical Management, Kailuan (Group) Co., Ltd., Tangshan 063000, China
e
School of Energy and Mining Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Adopting in-seam boreholes for gas pre-drainage is an important method for ensuring safety coal mine
Received 25 November 2019 operation. However, borehole collapse often occurs during the process of construction in soft coal seams,
Received in revised form 24 March 2020 especially in downward boreholes. The main purpose of this study is to develop an efficient drilling fluid
Accepted 30 March 2020
for coal seam methane drainage boreholes. First, a drilling fluid with a formula of 1 wt.% xanthan gum,
Available online 8 April 2020
and 1.2 wt.% Na-CMC, 0.6 wt.% cellulase and 4 wt.% bentonite, which is simply referred to as the drilling
fluid, was developed based on the actual requirements of the construction site. Then, five property tests
Keywords:
(viscosity, fluid loss resistance, cuttings carrying capacity, anti-collapse performance and degradability)
Drilling fluid
In-seam boreholes
of the drilling fluid were conducted in the laboratory. Finally, engineering application performances
Viscosity were carried out in Tangshan Mine, China. The results indicate the following: (1) When the xanthan gum
Anti-collapse concentration is fixed, the viscosity of the drilling fluid improves with increasing Na-CMC concentration.
The API filtrate loss of the drilling fluid decreases with increasing bentonite concentration, while the
filter cake thickness increases and then stabilizes. (2) The drilling fluid has an efficient performance
in the carrying capacity of drill cuttings and the anti-collapse performance of a coal mass. Thorough
degradation is completed 300 min after adding cellulase. (3) Compared with traditional clear water, the
effective drilling distance of downward core drilling using the drilling fluid increases by two times, and
the anti-collapse performance for coal seam methane drainage boreholes is remarkable.
© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction surface drainage wells and underground boreholes. In-seam bore-

Underground mining is the main mining method used in many
countries. High gassy coal seams account for approximately 60%
of total the coal seams in China (Zhou et al., 2018; Xia et al.,
2014). In 2017, 69 people lost their lives in major coal mine acci-
dents in China, and among these accidents, victims of gas accidents
accounted for 47% of the total accidents (Zhao et al., 2017; Wang
et al., 2019a). This means that gas accidents are still principal
threats to the safety of coal mining. An effective method for reduc-
ing the number of gas accidents is pre-mining gas drainage (Hao
et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2019a). Pre-mining gas drainage involves
∗ Corresponding author at: School of Emergency Management and Safety Engi-
neering, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China.
E-mail address: loganlz@163.com (Z. Lou).
holes are one type of underground borehole (Wang et al., 2019b),
as shown in Fig. 1. The stability of the in-seam borehole wall is
considered to be the most prominent problem during the drilling
construction process (Liu et al., 2016b; Xiang et al., 2015). The
stability is a result of multiple factors such as in-situ stress, coal
properties, geological structures, drilling fluids and technologies.
Due to the development of natural cleats and pores in soft coal
seams, the strength of the coal is greatly reduced, which leads to the
occurrence of construction problems such as clamped drill pipes,
buried drill pipes and borehole collapse, as shown in Fig. 2. Coal
strength will affect the successful formation of boreholes, reduce
the speed of drilling and increase the cost of construction.
The timely discharge of drill cuttings, and the cooling and lubri-
cation the drill bit are vital factors during the drilling process (Bayat
et al., 2018). Drilling in soft coal seams, broken coal seams and
water-swelling coal seams highlighted the drill hole-cleaning per-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2020.03.041
0957-5820/© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255 247

Fig. 1. The method of pre-drainage by in-seam boreholes in a coal seam. (modified from Zhao et al., 2019).

Fig. 2. The instability of boreholes during construction in the different coal seams.

formance (Zhang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019a). Therefore, a proper
drilling fluid is needed to meet these requirements. At present, clear
water is generally used as the drilling fluid during the construction
of in-seam boreholes along a coal seam. because clear water has
a large specific heat capacity and strong cooling capacity, and the
underground water supply in the coal mine is relatively convenient.
However, the use of clear water as a flushing medium for under-
ground borehole drilling also has some limitations: the viscosity
of clear water is relatively low, so it cannot suspend cuttings and
build an impermeable layer on permeable formations. The carrying
capacity of clear water is limited, and the wall-retaining function of
clear water is poor. Therefore, it is easy to cause complexities such
as borehole collapse and water leakage, and to induce accidents in
boreholes in soft, broken, and water-swelling coal seams.
(a) Soft coal seam; (b) Water-swelling coal seam (modified from
Wang et al., 2018).
In recent years, several studies have been carried out on drilling
fluids for the exploration and development of oil and shale gas.
Materials used by drilling fluids are mainly classified into water-
based materials, oil-based materials and synthetic-based materials
(Li et al., 2018). Water-based drilling fluid is the most widely used
fluids because of its low cost, safety and environmental friendliness
(Mahto and Sharma, 2004). Therefore, improving the performance
of water-based materials has been a popular research issue in the
drilling fluid industry for many years (Zhang et al., 2019; Zhao
et al., 2019b). One effective method is adding different additives
to meet field needs (Zhao et al., 2019c; Saboori et al., 2019). Poly-
mers such as polyanionic cellulose (Wang et al., 2016; Jang et al.,
2015), xanthan gum (Eren et al., 2015) and guar gum (Martín-
Alfonso et al., 2018; Huang et al., 2019) were used in water-based
drilling fluids for rheological and filtration properties. There was
also a new copolymer added into water-based drilling fluids to
248 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255
increase viscosity and reduce fluid loss (Al-Yasiri and Wen, 2019;
Wan et al., 2011). Nanosilica was used in water-based drilling fluids
to increase cuttings and solid particle transport from the wellbore
to the surface (Chu et al., 2019; Al-Khdheeawi and Mahdi, 2019).
The rheological properties of a water-based drilling fluid at dif-
ferent temperatures were tested with different concentrations of
ZnO and CuO nanoparticle additives, and the results showed that
ZnO provided a better overall performance than CuO on improving
the rheological properties of water-based fluids (Dejtaradon et al.,
2019). Polyethylene (LDPE) beads were introduced into water-
based fluids to improve the transport efficiency of cuttings (Yeu
et al., 2019). Three different deep eutectic solvents CM-DES, CP-
DES and CIM-DES were synthesized and investigated for their
novel use as shale inhibitors (Jia et al., 2019). Bentonite was mod-
ified by the insertion of mono-NIPAM to reduce the water loss of
drilling fluids at high temperature (Dong et al., 2019). An ampho-
teric polymer (ADD) and an anionic polymer (AD) were used as
fluid-loss additives to decrease filtration volume loss (Liu et al.,
2016a). The synthesis of TiO2 /polyacrylamide (PAM) nanocom-
posites was also used to improve the water-based drilling fluid
properties (Sadeghalvaad and Sabbaghi, 2015). Multiwalled carbon
nanotubes, nanosilica and glass beads were additives to increase
the rheological properties of water-based drilling fluids (Ismail
et al., 2016). Previous work highlighted the performance of drilling
fluids for drilling wellbores in rock formations and hard coal for-
mations and limited efforts have been devoted to investigating
drilling fluids for the anti-collapse performance of boreholes in soft
coal seams. Therefore, instead of using conventional materials, we
focused on developing a fluid material for improving the drilling
efficiency of in-seam boreholes in coal seams
In this study, the basic performance requirements of the drilling
fluid for borehole construction were proposed based on the
instability factors causing in-seam borehole collapse. Then, an anti-
collapse drilling fluid suitable for drilling in-seam boreholes in
coal seams was developed, and its viscosity, fluid loss resistance,
cuttings carrying capacity, anti-collapse performance, and degrad-
ability were investigated in the laboratory. Finally, an engineering
test was carried out in a mine to verify the efficient performance of
drilling in-seam boreholes in a coal seam.
2. Analysis of instability factors causing an in-seam
borehole collapse
The stability of an in-seam borehole is the key factor affecting
the effective length of an in-seam borehole drilling (Zheng et al.,
2018). Borehole instability is a complex problem caused by many
factors. A reasonable drilling technology and a proper performing
drilling fluid can ensure that the drilling trajectory is extended
in the coal seam according to preset settings. Before drilling, the
original coal body reached equilibrium under the action of vari-
ous stresses and was in a stable state. However, during the drilling
process, the formation of boreholes breaks this stress equilibrium
state, causing the occurrence of stress concentration. Under the
action of the overburden pressure above, the internal stress of the
coal body changes and is beyond the compressive strength limit of
the coal mass. Therefore, the coal mass of the borehole wall moves
toward the inside of the borehole, which causes borehole insta-
bility. In this case, if the drilling fluid cannot carry drill cuttings
and lubricate the drill bit in a timely manner during the drilling
process, the phenomenon of clamping and burying drill pipes will
appear with the necking of the borehole (Magalhães et al., 2016).
At the same time, if the drilling fluid does not have the ability of
wall-building and borehole-protecting, the borehole will macro-
scopically manifest as a collapse accident (Li et al., 2019b). When
the flushing pressure of the drilling fluid in the borehole is higher
than the formation pressure, the coal mass of the borehole wall will
be affected by the pressure difference (Dias et al., 2015). Once the
pressure difference is higher than the tensile strength of the coal
mass itself, the drilling fluid will leak into the coal seam (Albattat,
2019). The fluid loss resistance of the drilling fluid is a key factor in
solving the leakage phenomenon. Therefore, the instability of in-
seam borehole walls easily occurs during drilling in coal seams. A
proper performing drilling fluid to prevent borehole collapse plays
an important role in preventing borehole instability.
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Requirements of the drilling fluid for borehole construction
According to the analysis in the previous section, the basic
performance requirements of the drilling fluid for boreholes con-
struction include several aspects as shown in Fig. 3.
3.1.1. Proper viscosity
If the viscosity is too high, the circulation flow resistance will
increase. It is easy to trigger a change in the stress state of the coal
around a borehole, causing the borehole instability and collapse.
If the viscosity of the drilling fluid is too low, the circulation flow
tends to develop into turbulent flow, which will cause serious flush-
ing and erosion of the borehole wall due to the change in stress
of the coal body. This will reduce the instability of the borehole
wall. Accordingly, proper viscosity is an important performance of
the drilling fluid. Apparent viscosity is chosen as the experimental
index in the experiment of this paper.
3.1.2. Fluid loss resistance
The drilling fluid needs to have a strong sealing ability and effi-
cient wall building property. Coal strength will decrease due to
hydration expansion and dispersion of clay minerals in coal, which
will induce the instability of boreholes and even collapse. Accord-
ingly, during the drilling operation, the drilling fluid needs to be
filled in fractures of the coal around boreholes. At the same time,
thin and dense mud must be formed to adhere to the surface of the
borehole wall, thereby preventing the filtrate from entering the
interior of the coal body (Du and Wang, 2019). The fluid loss vol-
ume and mud cake thickness are the two measurable parameters
in the experiment of this paper.
3.1.3. Efficient cuttings transport
The drilling fluid needs to have a good ability to carry drill cut-
tings. If the flushing fluid cannot carry the drill cuttings (i.e., coal
powder generated during the process of drilling) to the outside of
the borehole in a timely manner, drill cuttings will gather together
and hinder the normal rotation of the drill pipe, which will cause
the drill pipe clamping phenomenon. The drill pipe will even be
buried in the coal seam, especially soft coal seams. The precipita-
tion rate of powdered coal in the drilling fluid is an experimental
index to investigate the cuttings transport ability.
3.1.4. Anti-collapse performance
Borehole wall collapse is a common engineering accident dur-
ing drilling operations. It seriously affects the completion of drilling
operations, and sometimes even leads to huge economic losses
caused by boreholes discarded as useless. Therefore, a drilling fluid
should always balance the formation pressure and at the same time
provide enough force to the formation to keep the hole open. Anti-
collapse protection is a basic performance of the drilling fluid. In
addition, the drilling fluid should not react chemically with the for-
mation. This performance requires coal to maintain good stability
in the drilling fluid to avoid deformation when coal is subjected to
liquid erosion. The anti-collapse performance of the drilling fluid
 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255 249

Fig. 3. The requirements and test methods of the drilling fluid.

can be measured by observing the collapse time of a coal pellet in

different fluids.

3.1.5. Degradability
During the drilling process of the coal seam, the drilling fluid will
adhere to the borehole wall and a “low permeability” layer will be
formed within a certain range around the borehole wall. Although
it is conducive to maintaining the stability of the borehole wall, the
borehole flushing fluid in the coal seam is required to be degradable
to ensure that the gas in the coal seam can be extracted through
boreholes successfully after the boreholes are formed (Gong et al.,
2018). The degradability of the drilling fluid can be investigated by
examining the change in the apparent viscosity of the drilling fluid
after the addition of the breaker.

3.2. Materials
The drilling fluid contains four chemical additives: viscosi-
fier, crosslinker, filtration reducer and breaker. Xanthan gum was
selected as the main material component and as a viscosifier. Na-
CMC was selected as a crosslinker that promotes the crosslinked
structure to further increase the viscosity of xanthan gum. Ben-
tonite was chosen as the filtration reducer to resist fluid loss
and cellulase was chosen as the breaker to reduce the viscos-
ity of the drilling fluid by breaking the crosslinked structure, as
shown in Fig. 4. Xanthan gum and cellulase were purchased from
Xieheng Biotechnology Company (Zhengzhou, China), and Na-CMC
and bentonite were purchased from Pucheng Experimental Mate-
Fig. 4. Proportion of water and various additives of Drilling Fluid. a- Cellulase; b-
Xanthan gum; c- Na-CMC; d-Bentonite; and e-Water.
rials Company (Hangzhou, China). All materials were used directly
without further purification or modification.
3.3. Preparation of the drilling fluids and powdered coal samples
To make the base fluid, 4.2 g of xanthan gum was slowly added to
400 mL distilled water and the solution was stirred to dissolve fully.
Then, the prepared fluid was placed into a beaker. To investigate the
effect of different mass fractions of crosslinker on the rheological
250 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255

parameters of the base fluid, concentrations of Na-CMC at 0.3, 0.6,

0.9, 1.2 and 1.5 wt.% were added into the prepared fluid, and the
solution was stirred dissolved for subsequent rheological testing.
To investigate the effect of the different mass fractions of the fil-
tration reducer on drilling fluid loss resistance, concentrations of
bentonite at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 wt.% were added into the following
solution: 1 wt.% xanthan gum and 1.2 wt.% Na-CMC. The cuttings
transport and anti-collapse abilities was investigated with the fol-
lowing solution: 1 wt.% xanthan gum, 1.2 wt.% Na-CMC and 4 wt.%
bentonite. In addition, the bulky fresh coal block collected from the
Tangshan mine (China) was pulverized into 60–80 mesh (0.25-0.18
mm) and 3–5 mm particle sizes and then it was equally separated
into 6 portions with each portion approximately weighting 15 g.
The 60–80 mesh pulverized coal (30 g) and 30 mL distilled water
were mixed and made into two coal pellets.

3.4. Methods
Fig. 5. Shear stress against the shear rate of the drilling fluid with different mass
3.4.1. Determination of the rheological properties of the drilling fractions of the Na-CMC.

fluids
The rheological properties of drilling fluids can be tested by the kinds of solutions after being stirred in beakers, and then the change
ZNN-D6B six-speed rotary viscometer, as shown in Fig. 3. During in the precipitation rate with time was observed. If the pulverized
the experiment, the shear rate of the drilling fluids at six different coal can be well suspended in the solution without precipitation,
dial readings of 600, 300, 200, 100, 6, and 3 revolutions per min then drill cuttings can be efficiently carried outside a borehole.
(rpm) can be changed by the transfer switch and the shift lever. The two coal pellets mentioned in Section 3.3 were added sepa-
The various rheological parameters of the drilling fluid can be read rately to 320 mL of distilled water and the drilling fluid mentioned
directly through the dial window on the top of the instrument. above. The anti-collapse ability of the drilling fluid was illustrated
Each solution was tested three times for repeatability, and the three by observing the collapse degree of coal pellets changing with time
final experimental data were averaged. Calculations of rheological in two solutions.
parameters were described as follows (Gbadamosi et al., 2019):
1 4. Results and discussion
AV = 600 (1)
2
 lb  4.1. Effect of Na-CMC on the rheological properties of the drilling
 = 1.067 ×  (2) fluid
100ft 2
(1/s) = 1.704 × ω (3) The solution with the xanthan gum (1 wt.%) was used as the orig-
inal drilling fluid in this experiment. Na-CMC was added to increase
Where AV is apparent viscosity, mPa·s;  600 is the dial reading at
the structural strength of the drilling fluid, and different samples
600 rpm;  is shear stress, Pa;  indicates the dial reading, and 1
with Na-CMC concentrations 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2 and 1.5 wt.% were pro-
lb/100 ft2 = 0.48 Pa;  is shear rate, 1/s; ω represents the viscometer
cessed. The shear stress-shear rate curves of the different samples
(rotor) speed (rpm). The viscosity, and degradability of the drilling
are shown in Fig. 5. The shear stresses increased with the concen-
fluid can be tested by this method.
tration of Na-CMC at the same shear rate. The experimental data
on the flow curves obtained for the test drilling fluids were fitted to
3.4.2. API filtrate loss the classical drilling fluid rheological model. There were dramatic
The instrument used in this experiment is a medium-pressure increases in shear stresses with the shear rate which revealed that
water loss meter. Under the room temperature conditions and a
pressure of 0.69 MPa, the water loss within 30 min of the drilling
fluid is recorded as the API filtrate loss. The deposited filter cake on
the filter paper was then carefully sieved and measured. The filter
cake that accumulated in the fluid particles in the drilling liquid
during the water loss process is called a mud cake. The filter cake
deposited on the filter paper was carefully sieved and its thickness
can be measured with a Vernier caliper. As the filter cake is con-
tinuously thickened and continuously compacted under the action
of the pressure difference, it will stabilize and protect the wall of
boreholes.

3.4.3. Determination of cuttings transport and anti-collapse

performances of drilling fluids
A solution with a formula of 1 wt.% xanthan gum, 1.2 wt.% Na-
CMC, 0.6 wt.% cellulase and 4 wt.% bentonite was selected as the
anti-collapse drilling fluid which is simply referred to as the drilling
fluid, as shown in Fig. 4. The 60–80 mesh and 3–5 mm of pulverized
coals (15 g) were selected as the experimental coal samples and
added separately to 320 mL distilled water and the drilling fluid
mentioned above. Pulverized coals were evenly suspended in two Fig. 6. The apparent viscosity changed as the mass fraction of Na-CMC increased.
 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255
Fig. 7. The AFL and FCT change with the different bentonite mass fractions.
Fig. 8. Different cuttings sizes transport performances of the drilling fluid compared with water. (a) 60–80 mesh, (b) 3–5 mm.
251
the fluid behavior of the drilling fluids followed Herschel-Bulkley
model with shear thinning behavior. The characteristics of the test
drilling fluids were described by this power law model, which can
be expressed by the following equation:
 = 0 + K n (4)
where  0 is the yield stress, Pa; K is the fluid consistency index,
mPa·sn ; and n is the flow behavior index.
Apparent viscosity (AV) is the total viscosity exhibited by a fluid
in the flow process. The apparent viscosity of the drilling fluid
includes both the viscosity caused by internal friction in the drilling
fluid and the viscosity caused by the formation of the space grid
structure between the clay particles and the polymer molecules.
The apparent viscosity of the drilling fluid can show shear-thinning
behavior with increasing shear-rates for effective cutting transport
to outside of boreholes. Fig. 6 shows the change in apparent vis-
cosity by the increase in the Na-CMC mass fraction at the high
shear rate of 1022 s−1 . It is interesting to note that the viscosity
of the drilling fluid increased with the addition of the Na-CMC. The
252 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255
Fig. 9. Anti-collapse performance of the drilling fluid compared with water.
drilling fluids with different mass fractions of Na-CMC have dif-
ferent morphological characteristics when retrieved using a glass
rod. The AV increases as the Na-CMC mass fraction increase. The
AV of the drilling fluid was initially 20 mPa·s without adding Na-
CMC. However, the AV of the drilling fluid was 122.5 mPa·s with the
adding the 1.5 wt.% Na-CMC. By adding 0–1.5 wt.% of Na-CMC, the
AV amount increased by approximately 6 times. This means that
Na-CMC can improve the polymer solution with a linear structure
to form a kind of polymer gel with a coexisting linear and net-like
structures.
4.2. Effect of bentonite on the fluid loss resistance of the drilling
fluid
Fig. 7 shows the API filtrate loss volume (AFL) and API filter
cake thickness (FCT) changes with the different mass fractions of
bentonite. The excessive filter loss volume is an adverse property
for a drilling fluid because it may have issues such as like forma-
tion instability and formation damage. The AFL of the drilling fluid
was 19.2 mL without bentonite after 30 min, but it was signifi-
cantly decreased to 7.9 mL at a filtration reducer concentration of
4 wt.%. Finally, there was a small decrease to 7.2 mL with a con-
centration of 5 wt.%. The obtained result shows that the addition
of bentonite concentrations into the drilling fluid improved the fil-
trate loss reduction volume at different levels. The FCT of the drilling
fluid increased from 0.05 mm-0.15 mm with the increase concen-
trations of bentonite. It is worth noting that there was no increase
in the FCT when the concentration increased from 4 wt.% to 5 wt.%.
It is noticeable that the fluid loss resistance of the drilling fluid
was improved with the addition of bentonite. The 4 wt.% was an
appropriate choice of mass fraction added into the drilling fluid.
4.3. Cuttings transport performances
The experiment was conducted by adding small sizes
(60–80mesh) and large size(3–5 mm) powdered coal particles into
the drilling fluid with fully stirred, and distilled water was selected
as the control group. As shown in Fig. 8a, small powdered coal
particles were suspended in the distilled water and the drilling
fluid during the first min. However, there was a precipitation phe-
nomenon in the distilled water group, and the precipitation rate
showed an increasing trend over time. Finally, the solution com-
pletely precipitated after 5 h. In contrast, no precipitation occurred
in the drilling fluid group throughout the experimental process.
Small powdered coal particles can be suspended in the drilling fluid
without precipitation. This means that the drilling fluid can carry
all small powdered coal particles to outside of in-seam boreholes,
while a small amount of small powdered coal particles can only be
transported outside of in-seam boreholes due to the precipitation
phenomenon. As shown in Fig. 8b, all large powdered coal particles
settled at the bottom of the distilled water throughout the experi-
mental process. However, most of the large powdered coal particles
were suspended in the drilling fluid at 30 min, and all the large pow-
dered coal particles completely precipitated after 10 h. This means
that the drilling fluid can carry almost large powdered coal parti-
cles to the outside of in-seam boreholes, while all large powdered
coal particles cannot be transported outside of in-seam boreholes
by clear water due to the precipitation phenomenon. This shows
that the drilling fluid has a good ability to suspend coal cuttings
and can meet the requirements of carrying cuttings during drilling.
4.4. Anti-collapse performance
The experiment was conducted by adding a coal pellet into the
drilling fluid and the distilled water separately. As shown in Fig. 9,
the coal pellet sank to the bottom of the distilled water without
deformation at the first min, while the coal pellet was suspended
in the top of the drilling fluid at the first min. Instability deformation
of the coal pellet occurred at the 5th min in the distilled water. The
coal pellet then continued to deform until it completely collapsed
in the 15th minute. Finally, the coal particles formed by collapse
were completely deposited at the bottom of the beaker after 2 days.
In contrast, the coal pellet maintained the original spherical shape
without any instability deformation throughout the 2 days. The coal
pellet just sank from the top of the drilling fluid to the bottom of
the drilling fluid. The drilling fluid had a better anti-collapse and
wall protection performance through the test phenomena than the
distilled water.
 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255
Fig. 10. Degradability performance of the drilling fluid after adding cellulase.
4.5. Degradability performance
Fig. 10 shows the apparent viscosity (AV) changes before and
after adding cellulase (0.6 wt.%). The AV of the drilling fluid
Fig. 11. Location of the experimental site.
253
decreased slightly within 300 min from 89.5 to 62.5 mPa·s with-
out the addition of cellulase. By contrast, its viscosity was greatly
reduced after adding cellulase, and the AV value decreased from
89.5 to 16.5 mPa·s. The filter cake (with the addition of powdered
coal) was placed in the clear water under constant temperature
conditions. It became thinner, and its integrity was destroyed after
soaking for 24 h. The results showed that the AV of the drilling fluid
was effectively degraded within 300 min after cellulase was added
and the degradation effect of the filter cake was obvious after water
soaking. It can be inferred that the permeability of the coal around
the borehole was restored.
5. Engineering application
The engineering application of the drilling liquid was demon-
strated at the Tangshan Mine. Tangshan Mine is a high-gas mine
located south of Tangshan, Hebei Province, China. The absolute
volume of gas emission from Tangshan Mine is 41.84 m3 /min. As
shown in Fig. 11, the test site was located in the 4 # drilling field
of the air-intake roadway in the 0292 working face of the mine.
The section area of the 4 # drilling field was 10 × 5×3 m3 . The coal
seam depth in this area was -885.6 m and the average coal seam
254 K. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 138 (2020) 246–255
Fig. 12. Borehole drilling distance of the drilling fluid compared with water.
thickness was 10.3 m. The original gas content and gas pressure of
this coal seam were 3.29 m3 /t and 1.3 MPa, respectively.
During the process of drilling, the construction of the down-
ward in-seam boreholes often suffers from poor cuttings transport,
drill pipe pinching, and even borehole collapse. To investigate the
on-site drilling effect of the drilling fluid in this case, four drilling
boreholes were constructed in the coal seam at the test site to drill
cylinder-shaped coal. The distance between boreholes was 1 m,
and the radii of them were 113 mm. The coal seam in this area was
downward at 22◦ along the drilling direction, so the dip angle of
boreholes was designed as -12◦ considering the difficulty of con-
struction.
For the drilling of Borehole A and Borehole B, served as a con-
trol group, and clear water was used as the flushing medium. The
drilling fluid was used in Borehole C and Borehole D, which was
the test group. The drilling distance of four test boreholes using
two fluids was used as the validation index of the effect. The test
results are shown in the Fig. 12. The drilling process of Borehole A
was difficult due to difficulty in cuttings discharge using the clear
water. The drill pipe pinching phenomenon occurred at the 3 m
position, and the borehole wall collapse occurred at 4 m, causing
the drilling to terminate. Similarly, Borehole B collapsed at 6 m,
and drill pipes were buried in the borehole. In contrast, the cut-
tings transport ability of Borehole C was obviously improved using
the drilling fluid. Although pinch drilling also occurred, the final
effective drilling distance was 13 m. Collapse accidents in Borehole
D also did not occurred, and the final effective drilling distance was
12 m. In the downward coring drilling process results, the drilling
fluid had an efficient cuttings carrying capacity, and the drilling
distance was doubled compared with that of the clear water.
6. Conclusions
This study aimed to develop a high-performance drilling fluid to
improve the cleaning and anti-collapse performance of coal seam
methane drainage boreholes. The experimental method and the
engineering test method were used to test the viscosity, fluid loss
resistance, cuttings carrying capacity, anti-collapse performance,
and degradability of the drilling fluid.
(1) The viscosity of the drilling fluid can be greatly improved
with the increasing addition of Na-CMC, when the concentration
of xanthan gum is fixed. The fluid loss amount decreased with
increasing concentration bentonite.
(2) The drilling fluid has the ability of efficient cuttings transport,
anti-collapse performance and fluid loss resistance with a formula
of 1 wt.% xanthan gum, 1.2 wt.% Na-CMC and 4 wt.% bentonite. The
degradation can be completed within 300 min by adding cellulase,
so the coal permeability around the borehole can be restored.
(3) The engineering test shows that compared with the conven-
tional flushing medium (clear water) of drilling in-seam boreholes,
the cuttings transport and borehole cleaning efficiency of the
drilling fluid for downward boreholes has been greatly improved
during the drilling process. The effective drilling distance increased
by two-fold with the same drilling technology and under the same
geological conditions.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This research is financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (51874314), the Open Funds of Hebei
State Key Laboratory of Mine Disaster Prevention (KJZH2017K02).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2020.03.
041.
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