Sharif Digital Repository

Gas injection into reservoirs can be used to increase oil recovery. However, reservoir heterogeneity and high gas mobility reduce sweep efficiency and decrease recovery. Using foam can reduce gas mobility and therefore increase sweep efficiency. Foam is thermodynamically unstable, so it is important to predict the foam stability. In order to understand the influence of oil presence on foam stability, static experiments performed on foam by varying the type and amount of added oil and molecular weight of added alkane. Also static foam properties have been investigated by varying the surfactant concentration, ionic strength, composition of different salts in the sample, and addition of polymer... 

Mixing in droplets is an essential task in a variety of microfluidic systems. Inspired by electrokinetic mixing, electric field-induced hydrodynamic flow inside a charged droplet embedded in an unbounded polyelectrolyte hydrogel is investigated theoretically. In this study, the polyelectrolyte hydrogel is modeled as a soft, and electrically charged porous solid saturated with a salted Newtonian fluid, and the droplet is considered an incompressible Newtonian fluid. The droplet-hydrogel interface is modeled as a surface, which is located at the plane of shear, with the electrostatic potential ζ. The fluid inside the droplet attains a finite velocity owing to hydrodynamic coupling with the... 

Dilational and shear viscoelasticities are important properties of interfacial layers. These quantities are particularly relevant in all systems which contain a huge internal interfacial area such as foams and emulsions. Therefore, also the 3D rheological behavior of foams or emulsions studied by respective methods is superimposed by the 2D interfacial rheology.We report on recent developments in dilational and shear rheology from an experimental point of view as well as discuss the state of the art of the underlying theories. Examples of most relevant experiments are also presented and discussed. Although not yet extensively investigated, the links between bulk rheology of foams and... 

A high-temperature-resisant solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber was prepared based on polyetherimide (PEI) by the electrospinning method. The PEI polymeric solution was converted to nanofibers using high voltages and directly coated on a stainless steel SPME needle. The scanning electron microscopy images of PEI coating showed fibers with diameter range of 500-650 nm with a homogeneous and smooth surface morphology. The SPME nanofibers coating was optimized for PEI percentage, electrospinning voltage, and time. The extraction efficiency of the coating was investigated for headspace SPME of some environmentally important polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from aqueous samples followed by... 

A novel Fe3O4-poly(aniline-naphthylamine)-based nanocomposite was synthesized by chemical oxidative polymerization process as a magnetic sorbent for micro solid phase extraction. The scanning electron microscopy images of the synthesized nanocomposite revealed that the copolymer posses a porous structure with diameters less than 50nm. The extraction efficiency of this sorbent was examined by isolation of rhodamine B, a mutagenic and carcinogenic dye, from aquatic media in dispersion mode. Among different synthesized polymers, Fe3O4/poly(aniline-naphthylamine) nanocomposite showed a prominent efficiency. Parameters including the desorption solvent, amount of sorbent, desorption time, sample... 

A novel high-throughput device based on 96-micro-solid phase extraction (96-μ-SPE) system was constructed for multiresidue determination of nine pesticides in aquatic samples. The extraction procedure was performed on a commercially available 96-well plate system. The extraction module consisted of 96 pieces of 1cm×3cm of cylindrically shaped stainless steel meshes. The prepared meshes were fixed in a home-made polytetrafluoroethylene-based constructed ninety-six holes block for possible simultaneous immersion of meshes into the center of individual wells. Dodecyl methacrylate and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate was copolymerized as a monolithic polymer and placed in the cylindrically shaped... 

Green and simple synthesis strategies have gained tremendous popularity for the production of anisotropically-shaped noble metallic nanoparticles. The long-term stability of the produced particles, the short timescale of the target reaction(s), as well as the use of non-toxic chemicals, are pivotal features of a useful green procedure. Herein we describe a simple and convenient wet-chemical approach to synthesize stable, non-toxic and water-soluble small gold nanotriangles (GNTs) and gold nanospheres (GNSs) in one step at room temperature, using Tween 20 and Tween 80, respectively. A high level of purity and monodispersity was obtained for the GNTs, in addition to an excellent colloidal... 

An immersed solvent microextraction (SME) method was successfully developed for the trace enrichment of aryloxyphenoxypropionate herbicides from aquatic media. A microdrop of toluene was used as the extraction solvent. Some important extraction parameters such as type of solvent, solvent dropsize, stirring rate, ionic strength and extraction time were investigated and optimized. The microdrop volume of 1.5 μL, a sampling time of 25 min, and use of toluene were major parameters for achieving high enrichment factors. The linearity was studied by preconcentration of 4 mL of the water samples spiked with a standard solution of aryloxyphenoxypropionates at the concentration range of 0.15 to 30 ng... 

Superparamganetic iron oxide-based contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have offered new possibility for early detection of lymph nodes and their metastases. According to important role of nanoparticle size in biodistribution, magnetite nanoparticles coated with different polyethylene glycol (PEG) concentrations up to 10/1 PEG/iron oxide weight ratio in an ex situ manner. To predict the PEG-coated nanoparticle behavior in biological media, such as blood stream or tissue, colloidal stability evaluation was performed to estimate the coating endurance in different conditions. Accordingly, optical absorbance measurements were conducted in solutions with different values of pH and... 

We report herein the development of a highly sensitive colorimetric method for the determination of cysteine and glutathione, based on aggregation of the citrate capped gold nanoparticles (Au NPs). This was exploited from high affinity of low-molecular-weight aminothiols towards the Au NPs surface, which could induce displacement of the citrate shell by the thiolate shell of target molecules, resulting in aggregation of the NPs through intermolecular electrostatic interaction or hydrogen-bonding. As a result of aggregation, which can be affected by the ionic strength, pH and concentration of Au NPs, the plasmon band at around 521 nm decreases gradually, along with formation of a new red... 

A new unbreakable solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber coating based on aniline-silica nanocomposite was electrodeposited on a stainless steel wire. The electropolymerization process was carried out at a constant deposition potential, applied to the corresponding aqueous electrolyte containing aniline and silica nanoparticles. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed the non-smooth and the porous surface structure of the prepared nanocomposite. The applicability of the new fiber coating was examined by headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) of some environmentally important polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as model compounds, from aqueous samples.... 

A novel solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber was fabricated by electrospinning method in which a polymeric solution was converted to nanofibers using high voltages. A thin stainless steel wire was coated by the network of polymeric nanofibers. The polymeric nanofiber coating on the wire was mechanically stable due to the fine and continuous nanofibers formation around the wire with a three dimensional structure. Polyamide (nylon 6), due to its suitable characteristics was used to prepare the unbreakable SPME nanofiber. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of this new coating showed a diameter range of 100-200nm for polyamide nanofibers with a homogeneous and porous surface... 

A new facile, rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive method based on magnetic micro-solid phase extraction (M-μ-SPE) coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was developed for determination of the herbicide oxadiargyl in environmental water samples. The feasibility of employing non-modified magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as sorbent was examined and applied to perform the extraction process. Influential parameters affecting the extraction efficiency along with desorption conditions were investigated and optimized. The limit of detection (LOD, S/N = 3) and limit of quantification (LOQ, S/N = 10) of the method under optimized conditions were 0.005 and 0.030 ng mL-1, respectively. The... 

In this work, the preparation of a new grafted nanosilica-based sorbent was extensively investigated. An inexpensive modifier, cis-9-octadecenoic acid (oleic acid) was selected to be grafted on the surface of the nanosilica particles as the support. The grafting process was accurately confirmed by Fourier transform infra-red spectrometry (FT-IR). Applicability of the prepared sorbent was thoroughly examined by needle trap extraction (NTE) method. The grafted sorbent was dispersed in the appropriate solvent and carefully packed inside a steel needle. Feasibility of the method was completely examined using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as model compounds. For extraction of analytes... 

Novel unbreakable solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber coatings were fabricated by electrospinning method in which the polymeric solution was converted to nanofibers using high voltages. Four different polymers, polyurethane (PU), polycarbonate (PC), polyamide (PA) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were prepared as the fiber coatings on thin stainless steel wires. The extraction efficiencies of new coatings were investigated by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) of some environmentally important chlorobenzenes from aqueous samples followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Among them, PU showed a prominent efficiency. Effects of coating time and polymer... 

There are increasing evidences that adjusting the chemistry of the injecting water improves the oil recovery efficiency. However, the underlying mechanisms for this technique which is referred to as "smart waterflood" have not yet been thoroughly understood. It is needed to explore the role of individual ions through set of different tests, to find the right mechanisms behind "smart waterflood". This study is focused on the fluid/solid (carbonate) interactions through systematic wettability measurement. Contact angle measurements accompanied by spontaneous imbibition tests were employed to determine the role of individual monovalent and divalent ions in wettability alteration process by... 

Recently, application of silica nanoparticles (SNP) for enhancing oil recovery during water flooding has been much attended. However, understanding how rock and nanoparticles (NP) interacts through adsorption onto the carbonate reservoir rocks is not well discussed. In this work, adsorption behavior of SNP onto the calcite had been characterized, through kinetic, equilibrium, thermodynamics and electrokinetic studies as well as interaction energy analysis by DLVO theory. Also, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was utilized to visualize the adsorption process. It had been found that kinetic behavior of SNP-calcite system followed the pseudo-second order model. Equilibrium... 

Determination of effective transport properties of droplet-hydrogel composites is essential for various applications. The transport of ions through a droplet-hydrogel composite subjected to an electric field is theoretically studied as an initial step toward quantifying the effective transport properties of droplet-hydrogel composites. A three-phase electrokinetic model is used to derive the microscale characteristics of the polyelectrolyte hydrogel, and the droplet is considered an incompressible Newtonian fluid. The droplet-hydrogel interface is modeled as a surface, which encloses the interior fluid. The surface has the thickness of zero and the electrostatic potential ζ. Standard... 

In the present work, the roles of inorganic oxide nanoparticles on the extraction efficiency of polyethylene terephthalate-based nanocomposites were extensively studied. Four fiber coatings based on polyethylene terephthalate nanocomposites containing different types of nanoparticles along with a pristine polyethylene terephthalate polymer were conveniently electrospun on stainless steel wires. The applicability of new fiber coatings were examined by headspace-solid phase microextraction of some environmentally important volatile organic compound such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), as model compounds, from aqueous samples. Subsequently, the extracted analytes were... 

In this research, thermodynamic modeling and activity coefficient prediction of KCl in the (water + formamide/glucose/proline) mixed solvent systems were reported. Thermodynamic study was performed using the potentiometric data based on extended ion interaction Pitzer-Archer model in various mixed solvent systems containing 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40% mass fractions of formamide and glucose at T = 298.2 K and 0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0% mass fractions of proline at T = 308.2 K and ambient pressure over ionic strength ranging from 0.0014 to 3.9579 mol·kg- 1. The adjustable parameters were determined and the obtained results were then interpreted based on extended ion interaction Pitzer-Archer model....