THERMODYNAMICS OF PHASE SEPARATION IN AQUEOUS POLYMER - SURFACTANT - ELECTROLYTE SOLUTIONS (ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY).
- Author
- SHEU, JI-ZEN
- Physical Description
- 271 pages
- Additional Creators
- Pennsylvania State University
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- Summary
- The phase behavior of solutions containing polymer-surfactants-electrolytes and water is of importance to a number of applications such as enhanced oil recovery. A large number of variables can affect the phase behavior of polymer-surfactant solution. They include the surfactant equivalent weight, surfactant concentration, type of surfactant, electrolyte concentration, type of electrolyte, polymer molecular weight, polymer concentration, type of polymer, any additives introduced and the temperature. The main goal of this research is to develop a thermodynamic model to describe solution phase behavior, taking into account the molecular characteristics of the polymer, surfactant and electrolyte molecules. Also, a few phase diagrams are experimentally determined to compare against the theoretical calculations.
The experimental work involved a study of the effect of the following variables on the phase behavior of polymer-surfactant solution: surfactant equivalent weight, surfactant concentration, and electrolyte concentration. Investigations have been carried out for alkyl sulfonate/sulfate surfactants (equivalent weights in the range 174 to 572) and anionic (Pusher 700 and Flocon) and nonionic (POE 4,000,000) polymers (at 1500 ppm concentration of polymer).
A thermodynamic model that can describe the phase behaviors of polymer-surfactant-electrolyte solutions is developed here on the basis of a polymer solution theory (the Lattice Fluid model of Sanchez and Lacombe) serving as the framework and using the concept of pseudosolvent (composed of surfactant, electrolyte and water) which reduces the four-component system into a two-pseudocomponent system. The phase diagrams calculated by the present thermodynamic model are compared against the phase behavior experimentally determined in the present study. Satisfactory agreement between the theoretical and experimental phase diagrams is found. In addition, the Pseudosolvent Model predicts all the qualitative trends observed by other workers from their experimental studies. - Other Subject(s)
- Dissertation Note
- Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University 1983.
- Note
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, Section: B, page: 2840.
- Part Of
- Dissertation Abstracts International
45-01B
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