228 results about "Sand granules" patented technology

Methods and compositions useful for subterranean formation treatments, such as hydraulic fracturing treatments and sand control that utilize relatively lightweight and / or substantially neutrally buoyant particulates. Particles that may be employed include particulates of naturally occurring materials that may be optionally strengthened or hardened by exposure to a modifying agent; porous materials including selectively configured porous material particles manufactured and / or treated with selected glazing materials, coating materials and / or penetrating materials; and well treating aggregates composed of an organic lightweight material and a weight modifying agent. The relatively lightweight particulate may be suspended as a substantially neutral buoyant particulate and stored with a carrier fluid as a pumpable slurry.

A process for the preparation of high quality char from organic waste materials. The waste is first sorted to remove recyclable inorganic materials of economic value (metals, glass) and other foreign materials that would be detrimental to the quality of the final product (stone, sand, construction debris, etc.). After size reduction, the waste is pyrolyzed at a temperature range of 250 to 600° F., in a high capacity, continuous mixer reactor, using in-situ viscous heating of the waste materials, to produce a highly uniform, granular synthetic product similar in energy content and handling characteristics to, but much cleaner burning than, natural coal.

An article of footwear for sand sports includes an outsole and an upper secured to the outsole. The upper has a first toe pocket configured to receive a big toe of a user and a second toe pocket configured to receive at least some of the remaining toes of the user. A wrap extends around a midfoot portion of the outsole and the upper, and around a heel portion of the upper. A plurality of cleats may be secured to a lower surface of the outsole.

Methods and compositions useful for subterranean formation treatments, such as hydraulic fracturing treatments and sand control that utilize relatively lightweight and / or substantially neutrally buoyant particulates. Particles that may be employed include particulates of naturally occurring materials that may be optionally strengthened or hardened by exposure to a modifying agent; porous materials including selectively configured porous material particles manufactured and / or treated with selected glazing materials, coating materials and / or penetrating materials; and well treating aggregates composed of an organic lightweight material and a weight modifying agent. The relatively lightweight particulate may be suspended as a substantially neutral buoyant particulate and stored with a carrier fluid as a pumpable slurry.

Lightweight polyamide particulates may be used in treatment of subterranean formations, including hydraulic fracturing and sand control methods, such as gravel packing. The polyamide particulates typically have an apparent specific gravity (ASG) between from about 1.05 to about 2.0 and are stable at temperatures up to 500° C. The polyamide particulates may be used in combination with a filler which further serves to increase the strength and temperature stability of the resulting composite. Fracture conductivity may be increased by the placement of the low density polyamide particulates as a partial monolayer.

The present invention relates to improved methods for completing well bores along producing zones while controlling formation sands and increasing surface area available for production. Some embodiments of the methods of the present invention provide methods of controlling the migration of formation sand in a well bore and increasing surface area for well production comprising the steps of hydrajetting at least one slot into a zone along a well bore; and, placing a consolidation material comprising particulates into the slot.

A lightweight ready-mix concrete composition that contains 8-20 volume percent cement, 11-50 volume percent sand, 10-31 volume percent prepuff particles, 9-40 volume percent coarse aggregate, and 10-22 volume percent water, where the sum of components used does not exceed 100 volume percent. The prepuff particles have an average particle diameter of from 0.2 mm to 8 mm, a bulk density of from 0.02 g / cc to 0.64 g / cc, an aspect ratio of from 1 to 3. The slump value of the composition measured according to ASTM C 143 is from 2 to 8 inches. After the lightweight ready-mix concrete composition is set for 28 days, it has a compressive strength of at least 1400 psi as tested according to ASTM C39.

An aromatics / naphthalene rich stream obtained by processing heavy gas oil derived from tar sands and cycle oils derived from cracking heavy gas oil may optionally be blended and subjected to a hydrogenation process and a ring opening reaction typically in the presence of a zeolite, alumina, or silica alumina based catalyst which may contain noble metals and or copper or molybdenum to produce paraffinic feedstocks for further chemical processing.

Methods comprising introducing a relative permeability modifier fluid into at least a portion of a subterranean formation to form a treated portion of the subterranean formation; and introducing a consolidating agent into the treated portion of the subterranean formation so as to transform at least a section of the treated portion of the subterranean formation into a consolidated region. In some embodiments, the subterranean formation may have been previously hydraulically fracture-stimulated.

Disclosed are strategies for the economical microbial generation of hydrogen, useful as an alternative energy source, from hydrocarbon-rich deposits such as coal, oil and / or gas formations, oil shale, bitumen, tar sands, carbonaceous shale, peat deposits and sediments rich in organic matter through the management of the metabolism of microbial consortia.

The golf club uses specific type grooves specialized for individual types of known golf clubs, wherein the modified grooves maximises control of the golf ball through tailoring backspin to the club selected. Clubs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 wherein selected club configuration has a reduced groove volume to maximise performance. Clubs 8, 9, pitching wedge, gap wedge and sand wedge has an increased groove volume to maximize performance.

A method for recovering valuable chemical products from heavy hydrocarbons such as tar sand or petroleum waste products is disclosed and described. Heavy hydrocarbons can be contacted with a fragmentation fluid which includes ozone and a solvent carrier. The fragmentation fluid can be provided at supercritical conditions. For example, supercritical CO2 can be an effective liquid solvent carrier for ozone. During contact with the fragmentation fluid, the heavy hydrocarbons are reduced in size to form a product mixture of chemical compounds. This product mixture typically includes chemical species which are more suitable than the original heavy hydrocarbons to commercial uses and / or further separation to provide useful starting materials for a wide variety of synthesis and industrial applications.

A viscoelastic gelled oil, for example gelled diesel or paraffin oil, is made with a gelling agent, for example a phosphate ester, a metal carboxylate, for example an aluminum carboxylate, and a gel-enhancing surfactant, for example a zwitterionic surfactant, for example erucylamidopropyl betaine. The gel-enhancing surfactant makes the gel viscoelastic, increases the stability and decreases the sensitivity to the concentrations of the gelling agent and the metal carboxylate. The enhanced viscoelastic gelled oils are used, as examples, in hydraulic fracturing, frac packing, gravel packing, diversion, fluid loss control, lost circulation control, sand control, wellbore cleanout, wellbore or pipeline sweeping, organic scale dissolution, organic scale removal, and drilling.

This invention discloses a method of converting carbon-containing materials directly to electrical energy without the need for intermediate processing steps. An embodiment comprises the use of a conductive molten medium with dispersed particles of carbon material as the anode in a fuel cell with a solid oxide electrolyte which enables conversion of carbon-containing materials (such as pulverized coal, charcoal, peat, coke, char, petroleum coke, oil sand, tar sand, waste plastics, biomass, and carbon produced by pyrolysis of carbonaceous substance) directly into electrical energy in a single step process. The anode optionally may have a dispersed second solid phase that getters CO2 and SO2 gases that are produced during the anodic reaction. Hence, this invention facilitates near-zero emissions and dramatically reduces the release of environmentally harmful emissions. More importantly, this direct route to electrical energy eliminates Carnot cycle constraints and offers high thermodynamic efficiency.

An apparatus and method for gravel packing an interval of a wellbore. The apparatus comprises a packing shroud having a small number of packing ports and a large number of production ports. The production ports are initially plugged with a removable material. A medial annulus between the shroud and a sand screen is used as a conduit for delivering slurry to a borehole interval to form a sand pack. The packing ports are distributed along the shroud to allow uniform formation of a sand pack, while limiting loss of carrier fluid to high permeability zones. After the sand pack is formed, the material plugging the production ports is removed, e.g. dissolved by ambient fluids, to provide flow paths for produced fluids.

A process for enhancing the productivity of a formation consists of introducing into the formation a viscoelastic fluid which contains at least one surfactant, at least one quaternary amine polyelectrolyte, water, and a non-aqueous solvent. The surfactant forms aggregation structures or vesicles. The fluid, which significantly enhances fluid viscosity and thermal stability, is particularly effective as a diverting fluid to divert an acid treatment package from a high permeability or damaged portion of a formation to a low permeability or undamaged portion of a formation as well as a fracturing fluid. In addition, the fluid is useful for sand control completion.

According to a first preferred aspect of the invention, there is provided a downhole sand screen device for use in well completions that comprises a plurality of isolated individual sand screens. Further, in the preferred arrangement the instant invention consists of two screens, one concentrically nested inside of the other, and further wherein the screen sections are not continuous but rather are periodically interrupted by sections of blank pipe. Further, the screen sections are arranged so that a screen section on the outer pipe will be matched by a corresponding, but staggered, blank pipe section on the inner pipe. As a consequence, if a hole develops in one of the outer screen sections the movement of sand will be blocked from entering the wellbore by a second / inner screen.

A lightweight ready-mix concrete composition that contains 8-20 volume percent cement, 11-50 volume percent sand, 10-31 volume percent prepuff particles, 9-40 volume percent coarse aggregate, and 10-22 volume percent water, where the sum of components used does not exceed 100 volume percent. The prepuff particles have an average particle diameter of from 0.2 mm to 8 mm, a bulk density of from 0.02 g / cc to 0.64 g / cc, an aspect ratio of from 1 to 3. The slump value of the composition measured according to ASTM C 143 is from 2 to 8 inches. After the lightweight ready-mix concrete composition is set for 28 days, it has a compressive strength of at least 1400 psi as tested according to ASTM C39.

The golf club uses specific type grooves specialized for individual types of known golf clubs, wherein the modified grooves maximizes control of the golf ball through tailoring backspin to the club selected. Clubs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 wherein selected club configuration has a reduced groove volume to maximize performance. Clubs 8, 9, pitching wedge, gap wedge and sand wedge has an increased groove volume to maximize performance.

A constructive water resource recycling method is characterized in that great-sized water reservoirs, each of which has a drainpipe provided above for connecting to the ground surface, are buried in the underground soil; deep drainage trenches are selectively provided under the macadam stratum; the side walls of the deep drainage trenches have water inlets such that the rain can be led down to the soil via drainage bands, while trenches are covered by trench covers; the water contained in the water reservoirs can be drawn by water-drawing pipes to the ground surface for further utilization through a water pump of natural power; the great-sized water reservoirs are covered by soil and macadam stratum, and then an instantly permeable layer which is composed of macadam, pebbles or sand; finally, the instantly permeable layer is covered a concrete pavement and then drilled through to complete a constructive permeable pavement, thereby efficiently recycling the rain for fully utilization.

Cleaning and multifunctional coating compositions containing hydrogen peroxide and an organosilane quaternary compound in aqueous formulations are used to improve water and soil repellency and residual antimicrobial activity. Various surfaces may be treated including metal, glass, plastics, rubber, porcelain, ceramic, marble, granite, cement, tile, sand, silica, enameled appliances, polyurethane, polyester, polyacrylic, melamine / phenolic resins, polycarbonate, siliceous, painted surfaces, wood, and the like.

Surface treatment for fishing lures and sinkers is disclosed. The surface treatment can exist in a number of configurations, including holes, slots, grooves, or other details. The details have a cross section that allow them to be easily cleaned with a stick, branch, sand or other items that can be found near a lake or stream. The surface treatment allows a person to manually apply fish attractant to the outer surface of the fishing lure, and some of the fish attractant will embed into the surface treatment area providing retention of the fish attractant. In use the fish attractant will be washed from the surface treatment as the lure is moved through the water. The surface treatment can be incorporated into nearly any type of rigid or pliable fishing lure or sinker.

A spacer providing a substantially uniform space between adjacent tiles includes spacer legs extending radially from a common junction. The spacer legs, made from a porous material, are permanently adherable to a tile bonding material utilized to adhere the tiles to an underlying surface, and / or a grout material filling a gap between tiles. A process for making a tile spacer includes providing thinset material to which a liquid latex admix material is added. The materials are distributed evenly to a consistency of a damp fluffy sand-like mixture which is then placed into a mold of a desired shape and packed into the mold to bond the materials while still damp to form the tile spacer. The spacer is extracted from the mold and placed on a flat rigid sheet. The spacer is moist cured and dried at room temperature environment with 40-99% humidity.

A lightweight structural concrete with screw-ability and nail-ability similar to wood is composed of non-structural and ultra lightweight aggregate such as expanded perlite of a particular size distribution and amount, entrained air cells of another specific size distribution and amount, and dense cementitious composition of a cement binder, a fine grade structural filler no larger than masonry sand grade, a pozzolan, and optional micro-fibers for reinforcement. This structural concrete matrix is optimized to hold 13 gauge T-nails and bugle head wood screws with thread ranging from 8 to 11 threads per inch and diameter of 0.10″ to 0.137″. The resulting concrete will have consistent screw-ability and nail-ability similar that of wood.

The disclosed invention is a process for producing synthetic crude oil and includes embodiments which convert or upgrade oil bitumen, a combination of oil sands and bitumen, a combination of sand and bitumen, oil shale and kerogen to high grade low sulfur crude oil. In one embodiment it is a continuous process for producing synthetic crude oil from oil sand bitumen. In another it produces synthetic crude oil from oil shale. The process in one embodiment includes a fluid bed reactor where the reactant and fluidizing medium is substantially hydrogen. In other embodiments, the process includes treating the oil sand (tar sand) or shale to produce a fluidizable feed, feeding the fluidizable feed to a fluidized bed reactor, and fluidizing and reacting the fluidizable feed in the fluidized bed reactor with a feed having hydrogen.

The invention concerns an acoustic sensor (44) for identifying obstruction of a circular grit trap for recycling fine sand in an industrial water clarifying plant. The circular grit trap comprises a cylindrical body having an outer wall and having at one first end a first sand-containing fluid inlet for receiving sludge and fine sand and a first overflow outlet of fluid not containing sand orthogonal to the fluid inlet, to evacuate said sludge, and at a second end a second sand-containing fluid underflow outlet coaxial with the first fluid outlet, to recover said sand. The acoustic sensor is sensitive to the noise radiated by the flow of the sand-containing fluid in the circular grit trap and is applied against the outer wall of the cylindrical body of the circular grit trap, in the plane of the fluid inlet but not coaxially therewith. Said acoustic sensor transmits a warning signal when an abnormal amplitude variation of sound level is measured in the bands of ⅓ octave centered on frequencies of 25 Hz or 200 Hz.

The present invention relates to a simple apparatus for producing chlorine dioxide gas, and more specifically, a simple apparatus for producing chlorine dioxide gas in which a sand or silica gel layer, a chlorine dioxide producing layer and, if necessary, a coarse sand layer and a silica gel or zeolite layer sequentially fill the bottom of a tube, a number of solution-absorption holes are formed at the bottom of the tube, and a number of ClO2 outlets are formed at the top of the tube. According to the apparatus of the invention, it is possible to instantly produce a small amount of chlorine dioxide in simple and safe manner or possible to safely preserve or provide a small amount of chlorine dioxide for a long time.

The present invention discloses a means for utilizing the heat source with efficiency at least comprising: a container, which is settled at the center of said means; a sand, which is settled within said means and outside said container; a hot gas channel, which is interconnected with said container and is covered with said sand; a collecting casket, which is settled on the bottom of said container and is used to collect the ash of the charcoal; a casket chamber, which could allocate said collecting casket within; a storage room, which is sited below said casket chamber; a plurality of rolling wheels, which is sited on the bottom of said means that could make said means moving freely; said hot gas channel could be covered by means of the sand to avoid the heat dissipation of the heat inside the heat gas channel while keeping high temperature which could make use of the heat resource and thus achieves the effects of baking, temperature-maintenance, cover toast as well as warm-keeping on the same time.

Method for constructing an integrated rock physics model that simulates both shale anisotropy and stress-induced anisotropy of clastic rocks. In the model, the total pore volume is divided into three parts according to the estimated shale volume and effective stress: (1) clay-related pores, (2) sand-related pores, and (3) microcracks (mainly in the sand component). The pore space is then partitioned into the clay-related and sand-related pores using a scheme first disclosed by Xu and White in 1995. The model simulates shale anisotropy via the preferred orientation of clay-related pores and stress-induced anisotropy via the preferred orientation of microcracks, which is controlled by the differential stresses. Laboratory measurements or well logs are needed to establish a relationship between crack density and the effective stress.

A method of making frac sand having a selected grade from a naturally occurring, mined sand having a SiO2 content of at least about 80 percent and having a particle size range where the maximum particle size is less than about 8.0 mm, comprising: crushing the mined sand into an intermediate particulate material; screening the particulate material into a feedstock with particles having a particle size coarser than about 350 mesh and initial values for roundness and sphericity of the particles; passing the particles of the feedstock through a blast tube with an outlet to pneumatically abrade the particles and propel the feedstock in a stream under a given pressure from the outlet; directing the pressurized stream against a fixed target located at a given distance from said outlet to physically abrade the particles to form an output mass containing abraded particles: and, repeating operations (c) and (d) a number of times or process stages until the particles resulting from the repeatedly abraded output mass is a final output mass having both processed roundness and sphericity values of at least 0.6 and wherein the values are greater than the initial values of the feedstock by at least about 0.10 to 0.50.