Ceramic Particles With Controlled Pore and/or Microsphere Placement and/or Size and Method Of Making Same
First Claim
1. A method for producing a microsphere and/or pore containing ceramic particle, said method comprisinga. forming a green body from a green body material that comprises at least one ceramic or ceramic precursor and at least one microsphere and/or pore former, wherein a majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are distributed in said green body such that the majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are not in contact with each other, and said microsphere and/or pore formers have a substantially uniform shape and size;
- b. sintering said green body under sintering conditions to form a sintered body having a plurality of microspheres and/or pores contained therein, and wherein said microspheres and/or pores are optionally at least partially surrounded by at least one glassy compound, and a majority of said microspheres and/or pores are not in contact with each other.
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Abstract
The present invention relates to lightweight high strength microsphere containing ceramic particles having controlled microsphere placement and/or size and microsphere morphology, which produces an improved balance of specific gravity and crush strength such that they can be used in applications such as proppants to prop open subterranean formation fractions. Proppant formulations are further disclosed which use one or more microsphere containing ceramic particles of the present invention. Methods to prop open subterranean formation fractions are further disclosed. In addition, other uses for the microsphere containing ceramic particles of the present invention are further disclosed, as well as methods of making the microsphere containing ceramic particles.
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Citations
60 Claims
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1. A method for producing a microsphere and/or pore containing ceramic particle, said method comprising
a. forming a green body from a green body material that comprises at least one ceramic or ceramic precursor and at least one microsphere and/or pore former, wherein a majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are distributed in said green body such that the majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are not in contact with each other, and said microsphere and/or pore formers have a substantially uniform shape and size; b. sintering said green body under sintering conditions to form a sintered body having a plurality of microspheres and/or pores contained therein, and wherein said microspheres and/or pores are optionally at least partially surrounded by at least one glassy compound, and a majority of said microspheres and/or pores are not in contact with each other. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 34)
- 25. A microsphere and/or pore containing ceramic particle comprising a sintered body having a plurality of microspheres and/or pores contained therein, and wherein said microspheres and/or pores are optionally at least partially surrounded by at least one glassy compound, and a majority of said gas microspheres and/or pores are not in contact with each other.
- 36. A method for producing proppants, wherein said method comprises filtering by membrane filtration one or more of the starting materials that form said proppant, and then forming a green body from said starting materials that have been filtered by membrane filtration and then sintering said green body to form a sintered body.
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39. A method for producing microsphere and/or pore formers comprising the steps of
a. producing microsphere and/or pore former templates of a predetermined size, and b. selecting a subset of said sized microsphere and/or pore former templates, and c. coating said selected subset of said sized microsphere and/or pore former templates with inorganic or organic materials.
- 41. A microsphere and/or pore former comprising a microsphere former template with an organic or inorganic coating and having a select average particle size and select particle size distribution.
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44. A method for producing a glass-ceramic, ceramic, metal or combinations thereof article, said method comprising
a. forming a green body from a green body material that comprises at least one ceramic or ceramic precursor and said microsphere and/or pore former of any preceding or following embodiment/feature/aspect, wherein a majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are distributed in said green body such that the majority of said microsphere and/or pore formers are not in contact with each other, and said microsphere and/or pore formers have a substantially uniform shape and size; b. sintering said green body under sintering conditions to form a sintered body having gas bubbles contained therein, and wherein said gas bubbles are at least partially surrounded by at least one glassy compound which forms a microsphere and/or pore in situ in said glass-ceramic, ceramic, metal or combinations thereof particle.
- 45. A glass-ceramic, ceramic, metal or combinations thereof article comprising a sintered body having gas bubbles contained therein, and wherein said gas bubbles are optionally at least partially surrounded by at least one glassy compound forming in situ microspheres and/or pores, and a majority of said in situ microspheres and/or pores are not in contact with each other.
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52. A microsphere and/or pore containing ceramic proppant having one or more of the following characteristics:
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a) a majority of pores and/or microspheres in said proppant (excluding any optional central void) have a size of less than 50 cubic microns, b) a population of proppants (based on a 50 gram sample of proppants) have a specific gravity variance of ±
0.8 or less,c) a total porosity of 5% to 33% by volume of proppant (excluding any optional central void), wherein a majority of the pores/microspheres are not in contact with each other, d) the pores/microspheres are uniformly distributed in the proppant such that the pore/microsphere density is about the same throughout the proppant. - View Dependent Claims (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60)
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Specification