Synthesis and evaluation of copolymers for application in enhanced oil recovery

MARTIN JUÁREZ DATA; MIRIAM STRUMIA; JUAN MANUEL MILANESIO; RAQUEL EVANGELINA MARTINI

Mar del Plata

Simposio; XVI Latin-American Polymer Symposium (SLAP 2018); 2018

Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

Water soluble polymers based on acrylic acid (AAc), acrylamide (AAm) and small amounts of hydrophobic monomers on the chain have shown significant industrial applications as thickening agents. Among these applications of synthetic water-soluble polymers, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is one of the most important for its economic impact. It is known that, by injection of highly diluted water solutions of high molecular weight polymers, the efficiency of oil recovery increases considerably due to the thickening effect of the pH-sensitive copolymer in solution. This feature is related to the electrostatic nature of the copolymer and its interaction with the solvent. Therefore, the goal of this work is to establish relations between the structure and the macroscopic properties of copolymers constituted by AAc/AAm and AAc/AAm/n-butyl methacrylate (BMA) as hydrophobic monomer in different mole ratios, for EOR applications.