Recyclable Conjugated Polyelectrolyte Hydrogels for Pseudocapacitor Fabrication

In alignment with widespread interest in carbon neutralization and sustainable practices, we disclose that conjugated polyelectrolyte (CPE) hydrogels are a type of recyclable, electrochemically stable, and environmentally friendly pseudocapacitive material for energy storage applications. By leveraging ionic-electronic coupling in a...

Chemical Feedback in Templated Reaction-Assembly of Polyelectrolyte Complex Micelles: A Molecular Simulation Study of the Kinetics and Clustering

The chemical feedback between building blocks in templated polymerization of diblock copolymers and their consecutive micellization was studied for the first time by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Using a stochastic polymerization model, we were able to reproduce the experimental findings on the effect of chemical...

Conjugated Polyelectrolyte Thin Films for Pseudocapacitive Applications

A subclass of organic semiconductors known as conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) is characterized by a conjugated backbone with ionic pendant groups. The water solubility of CPEs typically hinders applications of thin films in aqueous media. Herein, it is reported that films of an anionic CPE, namely CPE-K, drop cast from water produces...

Reducing anionic surfactant adsorption using polyacrylate as sacrificial agent investigated by QCM-D

Surfactant losses by adsorption to rock surfaces make surfactant-based enhanced oil recovery economically less feasible. We investigated polyacrylate (PA) as a sacrificial agent in the reduction of anionic surfactant adsorption with focus on calcite surfaces by using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. It was found that...

Understanding the stability mechanism of silica nanoparticles: The effect of cations and EOR chemicals

We have investigated the conditions of colloidal stability of silica nanoparticles smaller than 100 nm for their applications in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), especially pertaining to chemical flooding processes. Using zeta sizer and dynamic light scattering techniques, the stability of silica nanoparticle (SNP) dispersions has been...

Adsorption behavior of anionic surfactants to silica surfaces in the presence of calcium ion and polystyrene sulfonate

Adsorption behavior of surfactants to rock surfaces is an important issue in oil recovery, especially in the process of surfactant flooding. The surfactant loss through adsorption to rock surfaces makes such process economically less feasible. Here, we investigated the adsorption behavior of anionic surfactants (alcohol alkoxy sulfate, AAS)...

Flocculation of clay suspensions by anionic and cationic polyelectrolytes: A systematic analysis

The characteristics of clayey suspensions, majorly composed of quartz microparticles, in the presence of anionic and cationic polyelectrolytes were investigated using different techniques. A wide range of clay concentrations was used, i.e., from 0.07 to 1000 g/L for different experimental techniques, based on the fact that the clay...

Flow of a Cross-Linking Polymer in Porous Media

Heterogeneous reservoirs often have poor sweep efficiency during flooding. Although polymer flooding can be used to improve the recovery, in-depth diversion might provide a more economical alternative. Most of the in-depth diversion techniques are based on the propagation of a system that forms a gel in the reservoir. Premature cross-linking...

Proton binding by linear, branched, and hyperbranched polyelectrolytes

This article reviews our understanding of ionization processes of weak polyelectrolytes. The emphasis is put on a general introduction to site binding models, which are able to account for many experimental features of linear and branched polyelectrolytes, including dendrimers. These models are fully compatible with the classical description of...