Synthesis of an efficient copolymer of acrylamide and acrylic acid and determination of its swelling behavior

Abstract

Abstract The main purpose of this work is to prepare an efficient series of preformed particle gels (PPGs) and to study their behaviors to control unwanted water in oil fields. To this end, 12 copolymer samples composed of acrylamide and acrylic acid [poly(AAm-co-AA)] with different AAm/AA mole ratios and various mole percentages of N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) were synthesized by a free radical copolymerization method. The gelation time of each sample was measured. The samples were dried in three consecutive steps: drying at atmospheric condition, drying in the oven, and drying in the vacuum oven, respectively. The chemical structure and morphology of the prepared PPGs were studied by a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and a scanning electron microscopy, respectively. Additionally, the swelling percentage of PPG samples was examined in different types of salt water (MgCl2·6H2O, CaCl2·2H2O, BaCl2·2H2O, NaCl, KCl, and LiCl) with 200,000 ppm concentration and pH in the range of 3–8. Our results showed that the synthesized PPGs had swelling percentage (S%) in the range of 2–1300% for different types of salt solution. Moreover, the results confirmed that the swelling amount of PPG samples has a parabolic behavior against mole ratio of AAm/AA and decreases with increasing mole percentage of MBA.

Keywords

• Free radical copolymerization
• Swelling ratio
• Gelation time
• Preformed particle gels