Sharif Digital Repository

This study is aimed at simulation of double emulsion formation in a microfluidic double flow focusing device which consists of two cross-junctions connected serially. The water in oil (w/o) emulsions are produced in the first junction. In the second junction, water in oil emulsions are encapsulated by an outer aqueous phase to generate water in oil in water (w/o/w) double emulsions. Water in oil emulsions are formed in hydrophobic channels and water in oil in water double emulsions are formed in hydrophilic channels. A three phase numerical model, based on the VOF-CSF method, is developed for simulating the process of double emulsion formation. An adaptive mesh refinement technique is... 

Despite major environmental and economic benefits of cold recycled asphalt mixtures, many agencies have not yet made widespread use of this technology due to its so-called poor field performance and lack of accurate information on mechanical properties of cold recycled mixtures. Fiber is one the additives that is sometimes used to enhance asphalt mixture properties. Using fibers to improve the performance of cold recycled asphalt mixture has been studied by a few researchers with somehow contradictory results. In this research, the effects of adding four synthetic fibers (Polypropylene, A-glass, Para-Aramid, and Polyester) and two waste fibers (Waste Polyester and Waste Nylon) with different... 

This study aims to investigate the mechanical properties and performance of cold recycled asphalt mixtures (CRM). So far, several methods have been proposed for designing CRMs, which are mostly based on the volumetric and mechanical properties of the mixtures. In the meantime, few researches have considered performance of those mixes. The main approach of current research is to evaluate and enhance performance characteristics of CRMs regarding common distresses including early-raveling, moisture damage, fatigue cracking by an appropriate additive.Raveling and Cantabro tests were employed to evaluate the resistance of CRM against abrasion and semicircular bending test (SCB) and crack tolerate... 

In this study performance of tack coat (thin layer bonding asphalt concrete layers) was evaluated. The shear strength of tack coat layer was considered as its measure of performance. Direct shear tests were conducted on two layered HMA specimens. The test variables included the type of tack coat material, application rate (amount of residual bitumen per unit area), substrate condition, normal stress and shear loading rate. Four types of liquid asphalt (CSS, CRS, modified CRS and MC-250) were applied as tack coat. Three substrates conditions were used in the tests. These were 3-days old, 17-days old and long term aged substrates were used. It was found that optimum application rate depends... 

Although there are several popular and standardized mix design methods for hot-mix asphalt, there is no universally accepted mix design method for cold in-place recycling (CIR). The varieties of recycling machinery, materials, quality control limitations, etc. have contributed to this problem. Most of CIR laboratory mix designs are based on 4-inch molds and maximum aggregate size of 1inch. The use of single unit train, which is the most common machinery used for CIR, results in poor control of aggregate gradation, especially when distresses such as fatigue cracking exist. This may lead to presence of aggregate sizes larger than 1 inch. In this case the use of 4-in mold is no longer... 

Polymeric microspheres which can load biomolecules, proteins and growth factors play an important role in tissue engineering and drug delivery systems. The size of the microspheres and encapsulation efficiency exert a considerable impact on the usability of them. In this study double emulsion method is used for fabrication of microspheres. Effect of different parameters namely the speed of homogenization, time of homogenization, the amount of polymer in oil phase, the surfactant concentration in different phases on the size and surface morphology of the microspheres are investigated. Moreover, a release test for BSA loaded microspheres is conducted. Results indicate that by increasing the... 

The use of magnetic nanoparticles modified with proper surface agent and the ability of controlling by magnetic field, that can induce colloidal stability, is considered as a vector to transfer DNA plasmid, or pDNA in short, in the field of gene therapy. In thiss research, pH-responsive dextran-based magnetic nanogels (dextMNGs) were synthesized via inverse mini-emulsion method. Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed that magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) were successfully modified with arginine and had amine terminals. FTIR, also, proved that aldehyded dextran was crosslinked by arginine modified magnetite nanoparticles (RMNPs) via pH sensitive imine bonds. X-ray... 

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the extraction of calcium ions using an emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) with an isotopic perspective. Considering the importance of ion extraction as a preliminary step to isotope separation, the factors affecting the extraction of Ca(II) ions in the ELM process were investigated and optimization of the process was performed in this study. Dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 (DC18C6) was used as the carrier due to isotopic considerations. However, its extractability for calcium ions is limited. In order to address this issue, it is possible to introduce an organic acid, specifically di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (D2EHPA), into the membrane phase. This... 

Water injection, as one of the conventional methods to increase the oil recovery factor has always been at the center of research works for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The conducted studies show that by controlling the amount and type of ions in the injected water, the recovery efficiency can be improved. In the meantime, most of the investigations are focused on the interaction between water/rock/oil to trace the wettability alteration. However, these interactions especially between the injected water and the oil phase, would lead to change of surface charge distribution of the reservoir rock. Besides, this effect can change some of the characteristics of the fluid phases, especially in... 

The Oil wells are usually damaged because of the drilling process and production scenarios or fluid injection during EOR processes. These damages would critically affect the rate of production and injectivity of the well in the form of plugging damage. Different methods are used to fix these damages and increase the production flow from the oil wells. One of the most widely used well-stimulation methods to remediate this challenge is well acidizing. Although this method has very high efficiency in improving the ability of wells, if it is not designed and implemented correctly and optimally, it can cause induced damage and even lead to the well shutting. This challenge is especially reported... 

to achieve a stable elimination of colloidal suspended particles, polymer flocculants such as polyacrylamide and its derivative have been more used. To improve the performance of removing turbidity, reducing settling time, and better dewatering from sediments, hydrophobic styrene monomer copolymerized with acrylamide monomer. In this study the copolymer of acrylamide and styrene was synthesized by inverse emulsion polymerization, then this copolymer undergoes hydrolysis to form anionic groups on the polymer backbone. FT-IR, H NMR, and TGA analyses were carried out to investigate the structure of the copolymer. To evaluate flocculation, turbidity tests, zeta potential, and sedimentation rate... 

Formation damage is one of the most important challneges in hydrocarbon production; drilling mud invasion is one of its common types. This damage is caused by the penetration of the drilling fluid into the porous media, which its filtrate and solid pareticles block the pores and cause permeability reduction. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the pore-scale mechanisms of the formation damage induced by invert-emulsion drilling fluid and to investigate the effect of adding nanoparticles to the drilling fluid on the severity of the damage using microfluidic technique. According to the latest published articles, there has not been any research conducted at the pore-scale with... 

With the rapid increase of energy consumption, energy problem has been a global issue, which must be faced with and solved. One way to prevent energy consumption is to reduce drag in the flow inside the pipes by using polymer additives; Because the Transportation of liquids using pipeline technology has its limitations, since turbulent flow inside the pipe involves a loss of energy. The net effect of this is that increasing the energy applied to the flow does not increase the flow rate. For this purpose, copolymers and terpolymers of hydrophilic acrylamide monomers along with hydrophobic styrene and hydrophilic maleic anhydride monomers were synthesized by reverse emulsion polymerization... 

The following dissertation discusses Ionic Liquids (ILs) as an alternative to commercial surfactants for use in the Enhanced Oil Recovery process. Ionic Liquids came to researchers’ attention due to their environmental nature and their tolerance for high temperatures and salinity. In this work, firstly, an extensive literature review is carried out, and then, experiments are designed and performed to evaluate ILs’ surface activity and performance in a lab-scale EOR set-up. The Ionic Liquids used in this work consist of three types of methylimidazolium nitrate, [MIM]+[NO3]-, with three different alkyl chain lengths. This combination, and specifically the effect of nitrate anions on EOR and... 

Pulsed packed columns are among the most important devices used in liquid-liquid extraction, with wide application in petroleum and petrochemical industries, metal salt extraction, pharmaceutical industries, metallurgy, and other areas. Liquid-membrane technology is an alternative separation technique to the liquid-liquid extraction for the extraction and recovery of metal ions from aqueous solutions. There are three main types of liquid membranes: emulsion liquid membrane (ELM), Bulk Liquid Membrane (BLM), and Supported Liquid Membrane (SLM). Liquid emulsion membrane is one of the pertraction methods with phase dispersion. It is a three-phase dispersion system, consisting: external phase,... 

Synthetic based fluid has been introduced since 1990 as an alternative to conventional oil-based fluid, which, like oil-based mud, is effective wherever the use of water-based mud is problematic. This type of fluid with similar performance to oil-based mud is environmentally acceptable and the safety of working with this fluid is higher for drilling rig personnel. cutting drilled with synthetic base fluid can be discharged into ocean and sea waters, and this can reduce the total cost of drilling compared to oil-based mud because there isn't need to transport the cutting to offshore and dispose of them and consequently drilling is reduced. In terms of safety, these fluids reduce the risk of... 

Various methods have been developed to improve the production capacity of hydrocarbon wells, one of the most successful method is hydraulic fracture. This method, despite improving well production and increasing production levels in a reservoir, causes secondary damages such as water blockage, which is a result of the leakage of fracturing fluid into the fracture matrix and the deformation of the reservoir. This damage can reduce the production rate of a well. Studies prior to this study have mainly examined the damages caused by the leakage of fracturing fluids on a core scale. In most of these studies, damages has been studied only by measuring the pressure and changes in the permeability... 

Acidizing as the most frequent stimulation technique in the field, has been extensively used to increase the production rate. Even though acidizing treatments is well established, there is still an inherent risk for self-induced formation damage through incompatibilities of the fluids involved in this process.
A main potential problem during acidizing is the incompatibility of the acid and the reservoir’s crude oil. Acid interaction with crude oil can produce two major damage mechanisms that could offset partially, if not totally the benefit of the acid stimulation. These mechanisms are the rigid film emulsion formation and the acid-sludge precipitation, result in well productivity... 

Most used polymers, such as hydrolyzed polyacrylamide, are not able to withstand high levels of salinity and high temperature of the reservoirs. To overcome these problems, in this project, new types of microstructures based on modified acrylamide with hydrophilic groups (malic anhydride monomer) and hydrophobic groups (styrene monomer) using inversible mini-emulsion were synthesized. The structure of the synthesized terpolymer was investigated using methods of FT-IR and 1H NMR. The micro-structure and the particle-size of the terpolymer particles were studied with the scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and differential light scattering (DLS) method and the results showed that the average... 

Acidizing is one of the most effective techniques to remove the formation damage and restore (or even increase) the permeability of the near wellbore region. Although this technique is widely used to resolve the skin problem, it could initiate new damages itself that hinder the fluid flow and decrease the well production, consequently. Acid-oil emulsion and sludge formation are known as two major induced formation damage and the main reasons for the oil well acid treatment failures.When the HCl is reacted with asphaltenic crude oil during matrix acidizing, it results in unexpected damage at the near wellbore region and hinder the fluid flow through certain mechanisms include:
1- Pore...