New NBR/HNBR Adhesives for Oil/Gas Drilling Applications

A large segment of the oil/gas drilling industry relies on acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) compounds for producing critical parts like pumps, blow-out preventers, and stator assemblies. The trend in the oil/gas industry is toward drilling increasingly deeper wells. At greater well depths the environmental conditions that rubber-to-metal bonded components are exposed to are more extreme. The bonded assemblies must resist oils, acids, salt brine, and drilling muds at temperatures exceeding 121°C. These harsh environmental conditions are moving the industry from NBR to hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR), a specialty elastomer having excellent high temperature and fluid resistance. This trend necessitated the development of adhesives to match the increased performance achieved with HNBR compounds. LORD Chemlok^® 6450 and 6451 adhesives were developed and tested with a wide variety of HNBR and NBR elastomers in demanding environmental conditions. Performance was evaluated in ASTM fuels, elevated temperature ASTM oils, boiling water, acid, salt brine and diesel based drilling mud. Both adhesives deliver enhanced performance in challenging conditions and offer new options to meet the current industry trends.