Environmentally Friendly Drilling Fluid Lubricant: A Review

The traditional drilling fluid lubricants are seriously polluted and have biologically lethal toxicity to the ecological environment. They cannot be used for a long time in the drilling site and lack thermal stability. So, the replacement of traditional lubricants with new environmentally friendly lubricants has become one of the important research directions of drilling fluid lubricants in recent years. In this Review, we highlight the state of the research for an environmentally friendly drilling fluid lubricant. Using bio-oil, synthetic esters, amides, and polyols as raw materials, the configuration mechanism, lubrication performance, and field construction status of environmentally friendly lubricants for drilling fluids in China and abroad were reviewed. After analyzing the potential of lubricants in various countries’ research, the development direction of environmentally friendly lubricants in the future is proposed, such as the modification of recycled vegetable oil, polysaccharides, alkyl glycosides, and nanometer material, for reference by relevant scholars.