Introduction
Acknowledgements
Preparation and Charaterization of Well-defined Thermoresponsive Polymer Surfactants
Characterization of PEG-b-PNIPAm Emulsion Stability
Synthesis of PEG-b-PNIPAm
Thermoresponsive Polymer Surfactant PEG-b-PNIPAm
Department of Chemistry
Institute for Polymer Research (IPR)
Lu Li, Bingqing Yang, Jean Duhamel
Polymeric surfactants are among the most important additives that are used in the extraction of oil from oil sands. However, a fraction of these surfactants can enter the oil phase and are difficult to recover. The use of stimuli-responsive surfactants is one approach around this problem. This research intends to study the efficiency of temperature- respons ive po lymer ic sur fac tants poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) at stabilizing oil-in-water emulsions.
Applications in the Oil Extraction • Soap-free emulsion polymerization
• Thermoresponsive polymer surfactants
• Traditional oil-extraction surfactants
32 °C
P(EG-b-NIPAM)
98 °C
Quasi-living polymerization
• Radicals from at the beginning of the reaction.
• Additional amounts of monomer polymerize one day after the first polymerization is complete.
+ HBr +
PEG 2-bromoisobutyryl
bromide
2-bromopropoinate PEG ATRP macroinitiator
THF, TEA
Pyrene Labeling
m
+
1.CuBr/CuBr2 2.PMDETA
1,4-dioxane 80°C , 24h
2-bromopropoinate PEG ATRP macroinitiator
NIPAM (monomer)
P(EG-b-NIPAM)
• Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP)
60 °C , 2 h
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) Poly(ethylene glycol)
(PEG)
450 500 550 400 350 600
Wavelength (nm)
Inte
nsity
(a.u
.)
Inte
nsity
(a.u
.)
Pyrene in toluene
PEG112-b-PNIPAM800 in water
After Shaking
At equilibrium
Wavelength (nm)
45 ˚C 45 ˚C
Pyrene
PEG112-b-PNIPAM800 in water with pyrene in toluene
Recovery Efficiency
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
350 400 450 500 550 600
Wavelength (nm)
Flu
o. I
nte
nsi
ty (
a.u
.)
Py Py*
τM
hν +
How much P(EG-b-NIPAM) dissolves in the oil?
Inte
nsity
(a.u
.)
Wavelength (nm)
• The authors thank Imperial Oil and NSERC for funding.
References • Topp, M. D. D.; Dijkstra, P. J.; Talsma, H.; Feijen, J. Macromolecules
1997, 30, 8518-8520. • Hong, J.; Wang, Q.; Lin, Y. Z.; Fan, Z. Q. Macromolecules 2005, 38,
2691.