Influence of Surfactant and Charged Monomer Concentrations on Micro-Block Length of Associative Polymers by Micellar Polymerization

Abstract

In the micellar polymerization to prepare associative polyelectrolyte, the influence of solution environment on hydrophobical micro-block length has been investigated. The results revealed that the aggregation number (N_agg) of surfactant micelles and micro-block length (N_H) of polymers closely related to electrolyte concentration in polymerization solution, and all of the surfactant and charged monomer concentration can change the free counterion concentration (C_aq) to affect N_agg and N_H. Therefore, the N_H with traditional calculation method which N_agg is looked as constant value was not accurate enough. Subsequently, we studied the attribution of N_H to rheological properties. The results indicated that the micro-block length can increase obviously the reversible network strength in solution to make a few contribution of thickening properties of associative polymer.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Aggregation number of micelle
• associative polymer
• micellar polymerization
• micro-block length

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the state key laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoirs Geology and Exploration of South-West Petroleum University for supplying experiment instruments for this work.