Article pubs.acs.org/EF
Nanoparticles for Enhanced Oil Recovery: Phase Transition of Aluminum-Cross-Linked Partially Hydrolyzed Polyacrylamide under Low-Salinity Conditions by Rheology and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Abduljelil Sultan Kedir,*,†,‡ John Georg Seland,‡ Arne Skauge,† and Tormod Skauge† †
Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research (CIPR), Uni Research, Realfagbygget, Allégaten 41, N-5007 Bergen, Norway Department of Chemistry, University of Bergen, Realfagbygget, Allégaten 41, N-5007 Bergen, Norway
‡
ABSTRACT: There is booming interest in the application of nanoparticles for enhanced oil recovery. In this work, a polymer nanoparticle that is generated by cross-linking a high-molecular weight partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide with aluminum(III) and known as linked polymer solution (LPS) has been studied. The size and conformational state of LPS particles are influenced by the concentration of Al(III). To the best our knowledge, there is no current established method for determining the conformational state, i.e., single coiled particle, coil aggregates, or gel, for a polymer solution with a high molecular weight (>10 × 106 Da) and a low concentration (
