Acrylic acid hydrogel synthesis in high pressure CO2 mixtures for enhanced oil recovery applications

FACUNDO MATTEA; JUAN M. MILANESIO; JUAN I. RAMELLO; MIRIAM C. STRUMIA

Viña del Mar

Conferencia; Prosciba IV Iberoamerican Conference of SuperCritical Fluids; 2016

Oral presentation:The use of polymers and hydrogels for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) provides and additional chance to extract between 5 to 30% of oil from drilled reservoirs [1]. The most relevant fluid properties in this technology are viscosity, interfacial tension and density. In this work a hydrogel based on acrylic acid (AA) crosslinked with N N?- methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) was synthesized in a batch high pressure reactor using CO2 and an aqueous solution of the reactive species. The reaction conditions were set to 15 MPa and 100ºC using benzoyl peroxide (BP) or Azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as initiator, compared to the same reaction in a single CO2 based fluid phase.The thermodynamics and phase equilibria involved in both reaction schemes during the initial conditions of these reactions have been studied with the aid of an adequate equation of state. The resulting materials have been characterized and compared by IR spectroscopy, and swelling indexes. This work represents the starting point for the modelling and optimization of materials with better properties for EOR technology, such as hydrogels based on a combination of acrylic acid and acrylamide.