Hydrophobic Polymers Flooding

Abstract

Crude oil and other petroleum products are crucial to the global economy today due to increasing energy demand approximately (~1.5%) per year and significant oil remaining after primary and secondary oil recovery (~45-55% of original oil in place, OOIP), which accelerates the development of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies. Polymer flooding through hydrophobically associated polyacrylamides (HAPAM) is a widely implemented EOR-technique, so they attracted much attention on both academic and industrial scales. Hydrophobically associating polyacrylamide (HAPAM) prepared by free radical emulsion polymerization of acrylamide (AM) monomer, divinyl sulfone as hydrophobic crosslinked moiety and surfmers, to chemically anchor a surfmer and hydrophobic crosslinker moiety onto the back bone of acrylamide chain. After that, polymeric nanocomposite was prepared through copolymerization of prepared HAPAM with different molar ratios of silica nanoparticles through one shot synthesis. Rheological properties for the prepared composites were evaluated. Wettability evaluation carried through quantitative and qualitative techniques where the results indicate novel polymers ability to alter rock wettability from oil-wet to water-wet.

Hyper-branched structure—an active carrier for copolymer with surface activity, anti-polyelectrolyte effect and hydrophobic association in enhanced oil recovery

“…On the one hand, hydrophobically associated acrylamide copolymers had gained extensive focus due to their unique rheological properties. [13][14][15] Liu et al 16 reported a hydrophobically-associated poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) gel prepared via micellar polymerization, which showed a superior mechanical stability and convincing phase transition behavior. Also, a star-shaped nanosilica core-shell twin-tailed hydrophobic association copolymer, SHPAM, with a strong core compatibility and uidity control ability for polymer ooding in harsh environments, was synthesized by Pu et al, 17 enhancing the oil recovery to reach 20%.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of Sodium Carboxymethyl Starch‐Graft Acrylamide/1‐Vinyl‐2‐Pyrrolidone Copolymers via Central Composite Design and Using as Filtration Loss Agent in Drilling Muds

“…The bands for CN in acrylamide and 1‐vinyl‐pyrrilidone is at 1365 and 1292 cm −1 , respectively. [ 24 ] Hence, the presence of additional peaks of CMS‐g‐AN compared with that of CMS indicates that AM and NVP has been successfully grafted onto CMS.…”

“…The third decomposition is occurred at the temperature range of 253 to 417 °C, with 56.78% weight loss corresponding to decomposition of volatile organic compounds and the degradation of the polymer main chains. [ 24 ] During the fourth decomposition step, temperature is recorded in the range of 417 to 600 °C and the residual is 27%. Therefore, it can be concluded that the copolymer has thermostability before the temperature up to 253 °C, which suggests that the copolymer is suitable for use as a filtration loss agent at high underground temperature.…”

“…[ 14 ] For grated starch, graft copolymerization can improve physical and chemical properties of starch such as resistance to bacterial attack, [ 20 ] rheological behavior, and thermal endurance. [ 21 ] Various types of vinyl monomers as acrylamide (AM), [ 22 ] 2‐acrylamido‐2‐methylpropanesulfoacid (AMPS), [ 23 ] 1‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NVP), [ 24 ] methylmethacrylate (MMA), [ 25 ] have been used for synthesizing grafted starch. Among them, AM is suitable for controlling the viscosity, reducing filtration volume, and improving thermal stability of the drilling mud, but it is very sensitive to salts.…”

Effect of microscopic aggregation behavior on polymer shear resistance

“…It was found that changing the molecular structure, such as a star‐branched structure, was able to improve the shear resistance . In addition, hydrophobically associating polymers also demonstrate high shear resistance . And the underlying mechanism is that the shearing destructed molecular chains can be resumed by the association of hydrophobic groups to some extent .…”