Turn spent bentonite and polymer drilling mud into a spadeable solid for loading, haulage and disposal.
Drilling mud is designed to hold on to its water, which is exactly what makes it hard to solidify. AuraChem screens grades against mud taken from your returns or sump, after it has picked up cuttings and make-up water, before recommending a product.
Horizontal directional drilling for pipelines and utilities, bored piling, water bores, geotechnical investigation and mineral exploration all generate spent drilling fluid. It collects in pits, mud tanks, vacuum tankers and skip bins, usually as a thick grey or brown slurry carrying cuttings from the bore.
Mud that left the mixing tank as a clean, consistent fluid comes back changed: loaded with fine cuttings, sometimes diluted by groundwater, sometimes thickened by clay from the formation. The waste that needs treating is that returned mud, not the original recipe.
Bentonite is a swelling clay chosen precisely because it ties up water, and drilling polymers such as PHPA, xanthan gum or polyanionic cellulose add viscosity on top. Much of the water in a well-built mud is already spoken for, so a polymer added afterwards competes with the clay and additives rather than soaking up freely available water.
Salt is the second obstacle. Mud mixed with bore water or saline groundwater, or inhibited with potassium chloride, carries dissolved ions that reduce how far a sodium polyacrylate can swell. Two spent muds that look identical in the pit can need very different amounts of polymer.
The polymer is worked into the spent mud with enough energy to disperse it fully, because granules that clump in a viscous fluid only treat their outer surface. Given contact time, the polymer draws water away from the clay and gels, and the slurry stiffens into a material that can be lifted with a bucket rather than pumped.
The thicker the mud, the more the outcome depends on mixing. Thin, cuttings-rich returns respond quickly; heavily viscosified mud usually needs vigorous mixing and a longer wait before it reaches a haulable consistency.
These are potential operational benefits subject to material testing and field or production validation.
Spent mud can be dug out and hauled as a solid instead of as a liquid load
Less weight added than with bulking agents such as sand or sawdust
Sumps and mud pits can be cleared and backfilled sooner
The dose can follow the bore as it moves through different ground
Testing on your spent mud shows whether a standard grade copes with its clay, polymer and salt content, how much is needed and how long the mud takes to firm up. Where high salinity or a heavily viscosified system turns out to be the limiting factor, the report says so, so you can decide whether to treat at a different point in the process.
Bentonite and drilling polymers are already holding much of the water, and dissolved salts limit how far the polymer can swell. It still works in many muds, but the amount needed has to be measured on the actual mud.
Yes. Inhibited muds and saline water reduce absorption noticeably, so they usually need a higher dose or a more salt-tolerant grade.
Removing coarse cuttings with shakers or by settling reduces the volume to treat. Fine clay cuttings usually stay suspended and are treated with the mud.
Sometimes, but tankers are hard to mix in and gelled mud can be difficult to discharge. Treating after discharge into a pit, bin or bay is usually easier to control.
The receiving facility sets the test, often a check that no liquid drains from the material. Testing beforehand confirms a dose that meets that requirement.
HDD crews often pothole with hydrovac trucks to locate services, producing a thinner soil slurry without mud additives.
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We will test it with its real salt and polymer content and recommend a grade and starting dose.