Issue 19, 2019

Rational design and fabrication of an alkali-induced O/W emulsion stabilized with cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs): implication for eco-friendly and economic oil recovery application

Abstract

In this work, an alkali-induced oil in water (O/W) emulsion stabilized with cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) was proposed to advance the development of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) approaches. The reactive species in the crude oil were first determined by FT-ICR MS. Subsequently, direct measurements of emulsion rheology, morphology, drop size distribution, and interfacial tensions (IFTs) were performed. Particular interest was placed on the stability and variation of the average drop diameter of the emulsions to reveal the underlying stabilizing mechanisms. The results showed that the introduction of L-CNFs (containing lignin segment) and CNFs could significantly prohibit the coalescence of drops and thus improve the stability of the emulsions. L-CNFs and CNFs were irreversibly absorbed at the oil–water interface forming a solid “armor” on the drops with 63.1% of the oil–water interface being covered by CNFs. This finally led to the generation of highly stable O/W emulsions. This work demonstrated the potential of CNFs as promising “green” interface stabilizers for emulsion flooding EOR particularly for in situ surfactant generation scenarios.

Graphical abstract: Rational design and fabrication of an alkali-induced O/W emulsion stabilized with cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs): implication for eco-friendly and economic oil recovery application

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Mar 2019
Accepted
19 Apr 2019
First published
22 Apr 2019

Soft Matter, 2019,15, 4026-4034

Rational design and fabrication of an alkali-induced O/W emulsion stabilized with cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs): implication for eco-friendly and economic oil recovery application

B. Wei, J. Ning, R. Mao, Y. Wang, X. Xu and M. Bai, Soft Matter, 2019, 15, 4026 DOI: 10.1039/C9SM00609E

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