Green & cost effective CO2-thickners composed of trimethyl silyl-type amphiphiles, cross-linkers and polymers for enhanced oil recovery

Many hydrocarbon (HC)-polymers have been tested for increasing CO2 viscosity for using in enhanced oil recovery applications (CO2-EOR). However, those have been shown to be impractical for viscosity enhancements due to their poor solubility in supercritical CO2 (scCO2). Recent SANS studies found that tailor-made fluorocarbon (FC)-HC amphiphiles can form rod-like aggregates, encapsulating HC-polymers, in scCO2. The rod length was strongly depended on architectures and concentrations of both amphiphiles and HC-polymers. On the other hand, amphiphiles having CO2-philic trimethylsilyl groups formed disk-like aggregates in scCO2. In order to develop inexpensive and environmentally friendly (FC-free) CO2-thickners for CO2-EOR applications, this proposed experiment will explore optimum structures of amphiphiles, cross-linkers and HC-polymers to generate viscous rod-like aggregates in scCO2.