Waste Mandarin Peel as an Eco-Friendly Water-Based Drilling Fluid Additive

Drilling fluid represents the most important fluid that must fulfill numerous important assignments during drilling operations. Many commercially available additives for water-based drilling fluid fall into the category of non-degradable and environmentally hazardous materials. Significant development in this area can be made by using biodegradable materials as additives in drilling fluids. The objective of this study was to determine whether mandarin peel powder particle size affects the properties of the drilling fluid. In this paper, mandarin peel was used in the form of a dry powder divided into particle sizes smaller than 0.1 mm, and between 0.1 mm and 0.16 mm. Mandarin peel powder was added to a water-based drilling fluid in four different concentrations (0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2% by volume of water). By increasing the mandarin peel powder concentration, the API filtration reduced up to 42%, PPT filtration significantly decreased up to 61.54%, while the rheological parameters generally increased but remained within acceptable limits. It is determined that the optimal concentration of mandarin peel powder is up to 1.5% by volume of water.