Study on the mechanism and performance of polymer gels byTEandPVAchemical cross‐linking

Abstract Polymer gels are widely used as drilling plugging materials. In this paper, titanium bis(triethanolamine)diisopropoxide (TE) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution were chemically cross‐linked to obtain a gel material. It shows that the OH on the PVA molecular chain are chemically cross‐linked with the Ti ion in TE crosslinking agent through complexation reaction, and the cross‐linked segment can inhibit the chain motion, resulting in a stable “crab structure” gel configuration. The gel materials synthesized under this configuration were characterized and analyzed by SEM, TG‐DSC, GPC, and contact angle measurement. It was demonstrated that the gel performance is optimal when the concentration of TE crosslinking agent is 2.2 wt%, considering the gel strength and gelation time. In addition, the simulated plugging experiment of the gel showed that the service life of the gel was about 72 days, and the sealing performance and tensile recovery performance were significantly improved compared with the previous ones, which would provide a new perspective for the novel plugging materials.