Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Study on sassociation behavior and solution properties of poly(acrylic acid-alkyl polyoxyethylene acrylate) amphiphilic copolymers

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Iranian Polymer Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Hydrophobically associating water-soluble polymers (HAWSPs), which possess surfactant and polymer properties, are extensively studied. This research work presents a novel HAWSP, poly(acrylic acid-alkyl polyoxyethylene acrylate) (P(AA-AAEOn)), synthesized by aqueous polymerization of acrylic acid and alkyl polyoxyethylene acrylate (AAEOn) with various ethoxy groups. The structure of P(AA-AAEOn) was characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopies. The association behavior in the solution was also evaluated through surface tension, dynamic light scattering, and rheology measurements. The findings exhibited that P(AA-AAEOn) demonstrated noteworthy surface activity, which was amplified as the proportion of the hydrophobic group increased and could effectively reduce the water surface tension. When the concentration reached 0.01%, P(AA-AAEOn) in the solution changed from intramolecular association to intermolecular association. Additionally, P(AA-AAEOn) manifested notable shear resistance, shear recovery, and viscoelasticity, transitioned from energy elasticity to entropy elasticity in P(AA-AAEOn) molecules between 25 and 35 ℃. The experimental phenomena and mechanisms resulting from the association behavior of polymer molecules have undergone careful analysis. The elastic conversion of polymer molecules at varying temperatures is a noteworthy finding, which has not been extensively documented in earlier research works. A detailed analysis of this phenomenon has been conducted. However, further research is crucial to establish the prevalence of this phenomenon in HAWSPs.

Graphical abstract

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appeared in the submitted article.

References

  1. Bai CC, Ke YC, Hu X, Xing L, Zhao Y, Lu S, Lin Y (2020) Preparation and properties of amphiphilic hydrophobically associative polymer/montmorillonite nanocomposites. R Soc Open Sci 7:200199

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Zhang M, Kang WL, Yang HB, Zhou BB, Li Z, He YQ, Yurievich KG, Viktorovich LA (2021) De-emulsification performance and mechanism of β-CD reverse demulsifier for amphiphilic polymer oil in water (O/W) emulsion. J Mol Liq 342:117441

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Du G, Giudice AD, Alfredsson V, Carnerup AM, Pavel NV, Loh W, Masci G, Nyström B, Galantini L, Schillén K (2020) Effect of temperature on the association behavior in aqueous mixtures of an oppositely charged amphiphilic block copolymer and bile salt. Polymer 206:122871

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Wever D, Picchioni F, Broekhuis AA (2011) Polymers for enhanced oil recovery: a paradigm for structure-property relationship in aqueous solution. Prog Polym Sci 36:1558–1628

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Liang Y, Guo Y, Yang X, Feng R, Zhang X, Li H (2019) Insights on the interaction between sodium dodecyl sulfate and partially hydrolyzed microblock hydrophobically associating polyacrylamides in different polymer concentration regimes. Colloids Surf A 572:152–166

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Kakati A, Kumar G, Sangwai JS (2020) Low salinity polymer flooding: effect on polymer rheology, injectivity, retention and oil recovery efficiency. Energy Fuels 34:5715–5732

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Zhao Y, Peng F, Ke Y (2021) Design and characterization of oil-in-water nanoemulsion for enhanced oil recovery stabilized by amphiphilic copolymer, nonionic surfactant, and LAPONITE RD. RSC Adv 11:1952–1959

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhu S, Liu Z, Luo T, Shi L, Ye Z (2021) Solution properties and seepage characteristics of a dendritic hydrophobically associating polymer. J Polym Res 28:226

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Chassenieux C, Nicolai T, Benyahia L (2011) Rheology of associative polymer solutions. Curr Opin Colloid Interface Sci 16:18–26

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Zhi JQ, Liu YK, Chen JF, Bo LF, Qu GH, Jiang N, He WZ (2023) Preparation and performance evaluation of a temperature and salt resistant hydrophobic associative weak polymer gel system. Molecules 28:3125

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Bagheri M, Shateri S (2012) Thermosensitive nanosized micelles from cholesteryl-modified hydroxypropyl cellulose as a novel carrier of hydrophobic drugs. Iran Polym J 21:365–373

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Wan T, Li R, Wu D, Hu Z, Xu M, Cheng W, Zou C (2014) Rheological behaviors and structure of hydrophobically associating AM-SMA copolymers synthesized by microemulsion polymerization. Polym Bull 71:2819–2831

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Zhang H, Yu L, Ding JD (2008) Roles of hydrophilic homopolymers on the hydrophobic association induced physical gelling of amphiphilic block copolymers in water. Macromolecules 41:6493–6499

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Afolabi RO, Oluyemi GF, Officer S, Ugwu JO (2019) Hydrophobically associating polymers for enhanced oil recovery-Part A: a review on the effects of some key reservoir conditions. J Petrol Sci Eng 180:681–698

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Xu H, Li ZW, Wang CY, Wang ZF, Yu RJ, Tan YB (2023) Synthesis and application of amphiphilic copolymer as demulsifier for super heavy oil emulsions. Colloid Surface A 669:131498

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Percebom AM, Loh W (2016) Controlling the phase structures of polymer/surfactant complexes by changing macromolecular architecture and adding n-alcohols. J Colloid Interface Sci 466:377–387

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Harrison A, Tang C (2021) Amphiphilic polymer nanoreactors for multiple step, one-pot reactions and spontaneous product separation. Polymers 13:1992

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Zhao H, Kang W, Yang H, Huang Z, Zhou B, Sarsenbekuly B (2021) Emulsification and stabilization mechanism of crude oil emulsion by surfactant synergistic amphiphilic polymer system. Colloids Surf A 609:125726

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Zhou B, Kang W, Yang H, Li Z, Zhang H, Zhang M, Xie A, Sun Z, Sarsenbekuly B (2021) The shear stability mechanism of cyclodextrin polymer and amphiphilic polymer inclusion gels. J Mol Liq 328:115399

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Liu H, Jiang A, Jian G, Uhrich KE (1999) Unimolecular micelles: synthesis and characterization of amphiphilic polymer systems. J Polym Sci Part A Polym Chem 37:703–711

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Lu Y, Meng Z, Gao K, Hou J, Wu H, Kang W (2019) Interaction of amphiphilic polymers with medium-chain fatty alcohols to enhance rheological performance and mobility control ability. Energ Fuel 33:6273–6282

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Zhang Q, Gou S, Zhao L, Fei Y, Zhou L, Li S, Wu Y, Guo Q (2018) Solution behavior of water-soluble poly(acrylamide-co-sulfobetaine) with intensive antisalt performance as an enhanced oil-recovery chemical. J Appl Polym Sci 135:46235

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Chi N, Liu J, Lei M, Feng L (2023) Preparation of amphiphilic cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) with cationic microblock structure to enhance printing and dyeing sludge dewatering and condition performance. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30:13079–13093

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Jiang XY, Li YJ, Lu GL, Huang XY (2013) A novel poly(N-vinylcaprolactam)-based well-defined amphiphilic graft copolymer synthesized by successive RAFT and ATRP. Polym Chem 4:1402–1411

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Piculell L (2013) Understanding and exploiting the phase behavior of mixtures of oppositely charged polymers and surfactants in water. Langmuir 29:10313–10329

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Chakraborty I, Chakraborty T, Moulik SP (2013) JR 400-NaAOT interaction: a detailed thermodynamic study of polymer-surfactant interaction bearing opposite charges. Colloid Polym Sci 291:1939–1948

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Roy A, Comesse S, Grisel M, Hucher N, Souguir Z, Renou F (2014) Hydrophobically modified xanthan: an amphiphilic but not associative polymer. Biomacromol 15:1160–1170

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Zhu Z, Kou H (2022) The effect of NaCl on the solution properties of a betaine-type amphiphilic polymer and its performance enhancement mechanism. Colloid Polym Sci 300:69–81

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Larson RG (2015) Constitutive equations for thixotropic fluids. J Rheol 59:595–611

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Yang H, Zhang H, Zheng W, Li X, Wang F, Li X, Zhang D, Turtabayev S, Kang W (2021) Research on synthesis and salt thickening behavior of a binary copolymer amphiphilic polymer. J Petrol Sci Eng 204:108713

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Shi SL, Sun JS, Lv KH, Liu JP, Bai YR, Wang JT, Huang XB, Jin JF, Li J (2023) Fracturing fluid polymer thickener with superior temperature, salt and shear resistance properties from the synergistic effect of double-tail hydrophobic monomer and nonionic polymerizable surfactant. Molecules 28:5104

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2022MB148) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20CX05015A, 22CX03024A).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, People’s Republic of China

    Xiqiu Wang, Zhiqing Zhang, Yukun Zhang, Guodong Zhang & Fang Wang

Authors
  1. Xiqiu Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zhiqing Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yukun Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Guodong Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Fang Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

XW: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing-original draft, Writing-review and editing. ZZ Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Writing-original draft, Writing-review and editing, Visualization, Supervision. YZ Data curation, Methodology. GZ Writing-review and editing. FW Methodology, Investigation, Project administration, Writing-review and editing, Visualization.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhiqing Zhang or Fang Wang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the study reported in this work.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 7785 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, X., Zhang, Z., Zhang, Y. et al. Study on sassociation behavior and solution properties of poly(acrylic acid-alkyl polyoxyethylene acrylate) amphiphilic copolymers. Iran Polym J (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13726-024-01296-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13726-024-01296-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation