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... 

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... 

In this project, inverse emulsion polymerization (IEP) modeling of poly acrylamid (PAM) using population balance equations (PBEs) has been performed. For this porpuse zero-one and pseudo- bulk models and hybrid model including the zero-one and pseudo- bulk are applied based on the process conditions. The effects of surfactant steric barrier and surfactant reaction with radicals including monomeric radicals on the radical entry rate into the particle have been taken into account for these models. In the modeling, coagulation phenomenon was included by considering the effects of non-DLVO forces such as hydration and steric forces in addition to the DLVO forces. Simulation results for zero-... 

Nanophotocatalysts containing metal oxides and oxy-acids based on the nanoporous materials such as graphene, metal-organic-frameworks and carbon nano tubes were synthesized. The photocatalytic properties of the prepared samples were evaluated by the photodegradation of different pollutants in the suspension and emulsion photocatalytic systems. This study demonstrates a new kind of photocatalytic system via utilization of the superior specific properties inherent in Pickering emulsion. We designed the new photocatalytic system using a photocatalytic active component and hydrophobic conducting nanostructures to form the stabilized Pickering emulsion (Pe-bp system). The results revealed that... 

Hydrophilic polymers are widely used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes to increase water viscosity during polymer flooding. However, these polymers increase the viscosity of injected water in undesirable strands, before reaching considerable positions that make some problems in polymer flooding process such as thermal, mechanical, bacterial degradation, surface absorption and undesirable plugging. In this study, a novel core-shell structure of polyacrylamide as an active polymer and nanoscale coating polystyrene as a shell polymer was designed and prepared to intelligently control mobility ratio in oil reservoirs and overcome weakness and limitations of classical polymer flooding.... 

In this work, a comprehensive dynamic model has been used for vinyl acetate emulsion polymerization in a continuous reactor to predict the evolution of product particle size distribution under isothermal condition. Method of finite-volume has been applied for solving the population balance equations and the results are compared with the results obtained from moment method. Finite-volume method has been selected as a precise technique to predict sustained oscillations, which occurs in continuous emulsion polymerization. After performing sensitivity analysis and verification of system’s controllability, feed rate of surfactant and initiator have been selected as proper manipulated variables to... 

Water in oil emulsion usually forms during natural water encroachment or enhanced oil recovery processes due to the reaction between asphaltenic and naphthenic acid part of oil with brine in some heavy oil reservoirs. This results in major production challenges because of high w/o emulsion viscosity which leads to significant pressure drops. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the dominant mechanisms of w/o emulsion flow in porous media to overcome the production challenges. In the present study, w/o emulsion behavior is investigated through both static and dynamic tests. The w/o emulsion was prepared through mixing of a crude with brine using magnet stirrer. Emulsion stability... 

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... 

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... 

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,... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

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...