Effect of tartaric acid on the hydration of oil well cement at elevated temperatures between 60 °C and 89 °C

In order to study the abnormal viscosity evolution behavior of oil well cement slurries containing tartaric acid, the influence of tartaric acid on the early-age hydration of oil well cement at high temperatures was investigated by isothermal calorimetry (IC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and quantitative XRD (QXRD) analysis in the temperature range of 60 °C to 89 °C. Results show that, a high dosage of tartaric acid can fundamentally change the typical shape of the cement hydration heat flow curve - two additional exothermic peaks associated with aluminate phase hydration (C3A and C4AF) appear before the main hydration peak. The unsynchronized hydration of the aluminate phases and the silicate phases was found to be the cause of premature setting. Additionally, long-term curing study (up to 28 d) showed that increasing the dosage of tartaric acid decreased the ultimate hydration extent of C2S while it increased the ultimate hydration extent of C4AF.