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.