Characterization of a Polyacrylamide Solution Used for Remediation of Petroleum Contaminated Soils

Abstract

Biopolymers are viewed as effective and eco-friendly agents in soil modification. This study focuses on the wettability analysis of polyacrylamide (PAM) solutions for soil remediation. The contact angle, surface tension, and viscosity of PAM solutions were experimentally evaluated in air- and decane-biopolymer solution systems. Furthermore, a micromodel was used to investigate the pore-scale displacement phenomena during the injection of the PAM solution in decane and or air saturated pores. The contact angle of the PAM solution linearly increases with increasing concentration in air but not in decane. The surface tension between the PAM solution and air decreases at increasing concentration. The viscosity of the PAM solution is highly dependent on the concentration of the solution, shear rate, and temperature. Low flow rate and low concentration result in a low displacement ratio level, which is defined as the volume ratio between the injected and the defended fluids in the pores. The displacement ratio is higher for PAM solutions than distilled water; however, a higher concentration does not necessarily guarantees a higher displacement ratio. Soil remediation could be conducted cost-efficiently at high flow rates but with moderate concentration levels.

Characterization of Polyethylene Oxide and Sodium Alginate for Oil Contaminated-Sand Remediation

“…Compared with other biopolymers in the literature review, the viscosity in this study (1.523 × 10 −3~1 .867 × 10 −3 Pa·s) is higher, at the same concentration (2 g/L) and shear rates (1~10 s −1 ), than chitosan (7.76 × 10 −4~2 .415 × 10 −3 Pa·s) but is lower than the viscosities of Xanthan gum (0.0665~0.168 Pa·s) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) (0.126~0.408 Pa·s) [8]; (2) the viscosity increases with an increase in the biopolymer solution concentration, within the range of 0-10 g/L ( Figure 7); (3) the viscosity decreases with increased shear rates, from 1 s −1 to 10 s −1 (Figure 8), which is consistent with the previous study [7]. presented that the viscosities of the biopolymer solutions decrease with an increase in the shear rate between 3.4 s −1 and 17 s −1 [7]. At a given biopolymer concentration (0-10 g/L) and shear rate (1-10 s −1 ), the viscosity change of PEO and SA by the increased concentration of PEO (or SA) is more prominent than the viscosity change of PEO and SA by the decreased shear rate.…”

“…Thus they do not influence geo-environments after their use. Recently the characteristics of water-soluble polymers, including contact angle, interfacial tension, and viscosity, have been explored for the better utilisation of biopolymers in soil remediation and EOR [7,8]. Cao et al (2016) presented the characteristics of biopolymers, such as chitosan, PEO, xanthan gum, SA, and polyacrylic acid, in order to use them for soil remediation [8].…”

“…To improve the soil properties, organic agents such as polymers, biopolymers and surfactants have been developed, which indicate their capability of improving the shear strength and stiffness of soil [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Biopolymers, such as polyacrylamide (PAM), have demonstrated their effect on irrigation by increased water infiltration and decreased erosion due to their water-absorbing capacity [9][10][11][12][13].…”

Review on microfluidic studies for EOR application

“…Photoshoots of micromodels where PAM solution was displaced against air and decane were taken. The still images and videos captured were analysed using Image J software for computation of biopolymer saturation and PAM-Decane displacement ratios, Jung et al (2016). It was observed that the flow rate effect is more prominent for decane.…”

A Study of the Effect of Medium Viscosity on Breakage Parameters for Wet Grinding

“…It seems proven that the physic-chemical properties in the slurry can be modified in wet grinding due to changes in physical and chemical conditions (such as size distribution, concentration of solids, temperature, shear rate, pH value, the use of grinding aids, etc.). The use of polyacrylamide (PAM) in water as a viscosity modifier has been broadly studied previously [17,18].…”