EZ-mud is a PHPA (Partially Hydrolized PolyAcrylamide) polymer. It is a long chain polymer that helps with filtration control. It thickens the water like snot! It will also coat clay formations to help keep them from swelling from water hydration. It comes in both a liquid form. EZ-mud and EZ-mud+. Plus is a more concentrated form. The liquid form will by ruined by freezing. The liquid from will also blind shale shakers. The dry form is EZ-mud Gold. It's tiny beads of product. It's not affected by freezing. It will pass thru shaker screens without blinding them. It's also about twice as expensive as plain EZ-mud. The polymer chain of PHPA polymers can be broken down by chlorine. So it makes well development much simpler. Under some conditions drilling fluid can be straight EZ-mud, with no bentonite.
Quik-troll is a PAC (Poly Anionic Cellulose) polymer. It is also a filtrate control product it helps to make a tough, thin filter cake. It also helps in gravely and sandy conditions.
My normal recipe for a batch of mud is:
600 gallons water
2 coffee cans of soda ash for ph control
3 or 4 sacks of Quik-gel depending on viscosity desired.
Let gel hydrate for 20 minutes before adding polymers
2 mud viscosity cups (1 qt cup) of EZ-mud gold
1 1/2 mud cups of Quik-troll.
I mix this in a separate premix tank, then add to my mud system as needed, with fully prepared and hydrated mud. On a small scale a 100 gallon water trough works.
The polymers are expensive, they double to triple the cost of the mud. But I feel they are with it
In HDD drilling, I use a one-sack mix that has the soda ash and polymers added. Instead of five to seven dollars for a fifty lb bag, it's fifteen to twenty dollars per bag.
Bentonite is a thixtropic fluid. Think of Ketchup. It is a liquid when moving. When stopped it becomes a gel and will suspend solids. That gel strength is an important property of a drilling fluid. The polymers are thickening and fluid loss control control agents, but don't add gel strength.
I was drilling a municipal well one time flooded reverse circulation. This is where we keep the hole flooded with plain water and bring the cuttings up thru the drill rod. I had 200 gpm makeup water available. I hit a formation that I couldn't keep full. I added 10 gallons of EZ-mud to the return water. I went from the hole taking over two hundred gpm to less than 5 gpm makeup water. After we set the screen and sand packed it, we chlorinated. It ended up producing over 2500 gpm.
