This study describes the synthesis of polymeric resins based on styrene (STY), glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and divinylbenzene (DVB), modified chemically through sulfonation reactions during different time intervals, to learn the influence of the materials’ structure on their adsorption capacity and evaluate their potential for application in the removal of ammonium from wastewater to levels compliant with the technical standard NT202, R-10 (INEA, 1986). The results showed that besides the duration of the sulfonation reaction, factors such as surface area and pore diameter also contributed significantly to the ammonium absorption process. The efficiency of the formulations was in decreasing order DVB(7:3)(2)S, DVB(7:3)(24)S, STY-DVB(7:3)(2)S and GMA-DVB(7:3)(2)S. Of these, DVB(7:3)(2)S had the greatest surface area but had low ion exchange capacity. The resin with the greatest exchange capacity was STY-DVB(7:3)(2)S, but it had efficiency about 20% lower than the former resin, showing a result very near that of GMA-DVB(7:3)(2)S.

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Cardanol acts to stabilize asphaltene particles in crude oil, but its derivative polycardanol, synthesized with BF3.O(C2H5)2 as initiator, exhibits divergent behavior, acting as both asphaltenes stabilizer and flocculant. This behavior could be related to structural differences in polycardanol samples. Therefore, in this work, we study the influence of some polymerization conditions (monomer purity, initiator concentration, and reaction time) on the structures and molar masses of the reaction products, and the reaction conversion. The materials were characterized by size‑exclusion chromatography and hydrogen and carbon nuclear magnetic resonance. When reacting with distilled cardanol, the conversion, the molar mass, and the homogeneity of structures increased as increasing initiator concentration in the range tested (1-3% m/m). For both monomers (different purity degrees), when using a lower initiator concentration (1% m/m), the product contained a larger amount of unreacted monomer and different structures were obtained due to the occurrence of rearrangements. The presence of triolefinic molecules in the monomer provoked crosslinked structures for higher initiator concentration (2-3% m/m). This study elucidated the differences among the reaction products of polycardanol.

Background: The mixing of the formation water present in oil and gas reservoirs and the injection water (often seawater) can form inorganic incrustations, during enhanced oil recovery operations. In this case, the cations (calcium, barium, strontium, iron, magnesium, etc.) of the injection water react with the anions (mainly sulfate and carbonate) of the formation water, produce Such inorganic salts can that precipitate in the reservoir rock, damaging the oil production. pipes and production lines, clogging them. One of the ways to prevent this problem is to remove the cations from the injection water, but this is a challenging procedure. Objective: In this study, the Sulfonated polymerdivinylbenzene (DVBS) and the copolymer sulfonated poly(methyl methacrylate-co-divinylbenzene (MMA-DVB) were compared in their efficiencies in reducing to a very low levels the concentration of removing chemically modified with sulfonic (S) groups to ascertain their performance in removing the calcium and magnesium ions present in water. Method: The resins were modified with sulfonic groups and characterized. We used central composition planning with batch tests to evaluate the adsorption, which occurred significantly for both ions using both resins with contact time of 10 minutes. Results: For both resins, calcium was preferentially adsorbed in relation to magnesium. Conclusion: Taking is account cost benefit, the copolymer MMA-DVBS (a less expensive adsorbent than the polymer DVBS) presented a satisfactory behavior, making it a potential material for treatment of water.

It is important from both a strategic and economic standpoint to study the mechanism of formation of water/oil emulsions, to predict their increase of viscosity with respect to that of the crude oil, and to obtain information about the stability vs separation of these substances (since their presence can impair oil processing and distribution). The objective of this work was to ascertain the influence of monoethylene glycol (MEG) on these parameters and its action mechanism. The addition of MEG in different proportions in the oil emulsions significantly changed the flow curve of the emulsion, passing from a quasi‐Newtonian one to a shear thinning behaviour. Besides this, when MEG was present at low concentrations, the demulsification process was slow and an increase in concentration made the emulsions more stable than samples containing the same aqueous phase proportion. Under the conditions studied, the addition of MEG did not reduce the quantity of the aqueous phase separated compared to the emulsions free of MEG, but significantly delayed the demulsification process. Rheology provided important information regarding the phase separation process of the aqueous phase in oil phase emulsions, and dynamic testing suggested that the most relevant effect of the addition of MEG is an increase of the emulsion elasticity that can be correlated with the increase in the emulsion stability observed by bottle test and Turbiscan.