Smart Pickering water-in-oil emulsion by manipulating interactions between nanoparticles and surfactant as potential oil-based drilling fluid

Reuse of polymeric waste for the treatment of marine water polluted by diesel

Accidental diesel spills can occur in marine environments such as harbors, leading to adverse effects on the environmental compartment and humans. This study proposes the surgical mask as an affordable and sustainable adsorbent for the remediation of diesel-contaminated seawater to cope with the polymeric waste generated monthly in hospital facilities. This approach can also be helpful considering a possible future pandemic, alleviating the pressure on the waste management system by avoiding improper mask incineration and landfilling, as instead occurred during the previous COVID-19. Batch adsorption-desorption experiments revealed a complete diesel removal from seawater after 120 min with the intact laceless mask, which showed an adsorption capacity of up to 3.43 g/g. The adsorption curve was better predicted via Weber and Morris's kinetic (R2 = 0.876) and, in general, with Temkin isotherm (R2 = 0.965-0.996) probably due to the occurrence of chemisorption with intraparticle diffusion as one of the rates-determining steps. A hysteresis index of 0.23-0.36 was obtained from the desorption isotherms, suggesting that diesel adsorption onto surgical masks was faster than the desorption mechanism. Also, the effect of pH, ionic strength and temperature on diesel adsorption was examined. The results from the reusability tests indicated that the surgical mask can be regenerated for 5 consecutive cycles while decreasing the adsorption capacity by only approximately 11%.

Effect of reservoir characteristics and chemicals on filtration property of water-based drilling fluid in unconventional reservoir and mechanism disclosure

The research objective of this investigation is to explore the influence of filtrate reducer and reservoir characteristics on the filtration reduction of drilling fluid during the drilling process, and the filtration reduction mechanism of drilling fluids is also revealed. The results obtained that a synthetic filtrate reducer can significantly reduce the filtration coefficient than that of the commercial filtrate reducer. Moreover, the filtration coefficient of drilling fluid constructed from synthetic filtrate reducer is reduced from 4.9 × 10^-2 m³·min^1/2 to 2.4 × 10^-2 m³·min^1/2 with an increase in the filtrate reducer content, which is much lower than that of the commercial filtrate reducer. The weaker filtration capacity of the drilling fluid containing the modified filtrate reducer is attributed to the combined action of the filtrate reducer containing multifunctional groups adsorbed on the sand surface and the hydration membrane adsorbed on the sand surface. Furthermore, the increase in reservoir temperature and shear rate increases the filtration coefficient of drilling fluid, indicating that low temperature and shear rate are conducive to improve the filtration capacity. Thus, the type and content of filtrate reducer are preferred during drilling in oilfield reservoir, but increasing reservoir temperature and shear rate are not recommended. It is necessary to confect the drilling mud with appropriate filtrate reducer such as the chemicals prepared herein during drilling operation.

Microbial originated surfactants with multiple applications: a comprehensive review

Microbial synthesized surfactants are used in contaminated soil bioremediation processes and have multiple applications in various industries. These compounds minimize the negative influences in soil via absorption by detoxifying the toxic metals or compounds. Further, applications of biosurfactants are detected in treating chronic diseases or synthetic drugs alternatives in current periods. Various surfactant molecules can provide many benefits due to their diversities in structural and functional groups. These compounds showed a wide array of applications in multiple sectors such as biomedical or pharmaceutical fields. Agricultural, food processing, laundry, or other sectors. Many microbial systems or plant cells are utilized in biosurfactant production as confirmed by biochemical analysis of genome sequencing tools. Biosurfactant compounds can alter drug transport across the cell membrane. Different nature of biosurfactant compounds exhibited their antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral activities, or antiadhesive coating agents used in reduction of many hospital infections. These distinct properties of biosurfactants pushed their broad spectrum applications in biomedical, agriculture sectors and bioremediation tasks. Additionally, many strains of fungi or bacteria are utilized for biosurfactant synthesis involved in the detoxification of soil/other components of the environment. In these reviews, authors explained various biosurfactants molecules and their mode of actions. Also, applications of microbial originated biosurfactants along with their process technologies are described. Future perspectives of biosurfactants and their scope are also critically explained so that this review paper can be used as a showcase for production and application of biosurfactants.

Amphiphilicity-adaptable graphene quantum dots to stabilize pH-responsive pickering emulsions at a very low concentration

HYPOTHESIS

Stimuli-responsive Pickering emulsions have attracted considerable interest due to their widespread potential applications. Especially pH-responsive behavior could be easily implemented. In this work, we reported a pH-responsive Pickering emulsion based on amphiphilic graphene quantum dots at a low concentration which shows a great potential from the environmental and economic perspective. The stimuli responsive properties would make the smart Pickering emulsifiers recyclable and reusable.

EXPERIMENTS

The amphiphilic-adaptable graphene quantum dots functionalized by alkyl groups (C-GQDs) were synthesized by a facile one-step pyrolysis method. The pH-responsive emulsion performances were investigated, and the mechanism of pH-responsive of C-GQDs was studied by dynamic light scattering.

FINDINGS

The amphiphilicity of C-GQDs could be acquired controllably and effectively by this facile one-step pyrolysis method, which are able to stabilize Pickering emulsion at a very low concentration (0.001%). The amphiphilicity of C-GQDs are capable of changing in response to environmental stimuli. When the pH value of aqueous solution adjusts to 2, these C-GQDs aggregate in contrast to their stability in neutral condition due to the alternation of surface charges. The pH-responsive aggregation/ dispersion behavior of C-GQDs allows us to tune the interactions between oil-in-water emulsion droplets without introduction of destabilization agents. This will provide huge economic benefits in industrial applications in the future.

Redox and Doubly pH-Switchable Pickering Emulsion

In this work, a novel Pickering emulsion is stabilized by silica nanoparticles functioned with a redox and pH-responsive surfactant FA-DMDA-Ox that is prepared simply by direct neutralization of ferrocenecarboxylic acid (FA) and N,N-dimethyldodecylamine (DMDA) and exhibits redox and doubly pH-switchable behavior. Here, the Pickering emulsion can be stabilized easily by combining hydrophilic silica nanoparticles with less than 0.1 wt % FA-DMDA-Ox. After adding Na₂SO₃ and H₂O₂ alternately, the demulsification and emulsification of this Pickering emulsion are controlled reversibly. Moreover, the emulsion is switched "off" upon the addition of HCl and switched "on" upon the addition of NaOH and is also switched off upon the addition of NaOH and switched on upon the addition of HCl, which demonstrate the doubly pH-switchable behavior. Based on the analysis of ζ-potential, contact angle, and adsorbed amount of silica nanoparticles, the pH and redox-switchable mechanism of the Pickering emulsion are analyzed. Here, the redox-switchable behavior is induced by the reversible adsorption and desorption of FA-DMDA-Ox on the surface of silica nanoparticles. The pH-switchable behavior is driven by the controllable dispersion systems of silica nanoparticles and FA-DMDA-Ox because of the doubly pH switchability of FA-DMDA-Ox. More importantly, upon adding fresh oil after removing the original oil, the Pickering emulsion is recycled three times. Hence, the multiswitchable Pickering emulsion can be expected to be treated as a multifunctional material in practical applications, such as oil or wax removal in the petroleum industry.

Poly(Oxyethylene)-Amidoamine Based Gemini Cationic Surfactants for Oilfield Applications: Effect of Hydrophilicity of Spacer Group

Thermal stability, salt tolerance, and solubility in normal and high salinity brine are the major requirements for any surfactant designed for oilfield applications because the surfactant stays in a non-ambient environment inside the reservoir for a long period of time. Herein, a series of new gemini cationic surfactants (GSs) with varying spacer hydrophilicity were synthesized and elucidated using MALDI-ToF-MS, NMR (1H, 13C), as well as FTIR spectroscopy. GSs found to be soluble in normal as well as high salinity brine and aqueous stability tests revealed that GSs possess the ability to retain their structural integrity at high salinity and high temperature conditions because no suspension formation or precipitation was detected in the oven aged sample of GSs at 90 °C for 30 days. Thermal gravimetric analysis displayed a higher decomposition temperature than the real reservoir temperature and the GS with a secondary amine spacer exhibited high heat stability. The significant reduction in surface tension and critical micelle concentration was observed using 1 M NaCl solution in place of deionized water. The difference in surface tension and critical micelle concentration was insignificant when the 1 M NaCl solution was replaced with seawater. The synthesized surfactants can be utilized for oilfield applications in a challenging high temperature high salinity environment.