Study on the Adaptability of Alkanolamide (LDEA) Lowering Oil/Water Interfacial Tension to Different Crude Oils

In order to investigate the high interfacial activity and fair oil phase adaptability of alkanolamide, “1:1” type lauric acid diethanolamide impurities (LDEA) were synthesized and purified by the column chromatography method to obtain dodecanoic acid diethanolamide (C₁₂DEA), ester mixture, etc. The exact structures of these compounds were further confirmed by IR, gas chromatogrph with mass spectroscopy (GC–MS), and NMR. The influence of each component on the interfacial tension of oil/water (IFT) was studied by systematic quantitative analysis. The results showed that (i) the strength of each system to reduce oil/water IFT is C₁₂DEA /DEA ≈ LDEA > C₁₂DEA/DEA/ESTER > C₁₂DEA/NaOH > C₁₂DEA > C₁₂DEA/ESTER > DEA. This indicates that LDEA contributes to the reduction of the oil/water IFT and the enhanced adaptability of crude oil in this order: DEA > > ESTER; (ii) when the IFT of the LDEA/DEA system reached an ultralow value, the minimum content of DEA in the system was 1%, and the maximum ester content was less than 5% when the LDEA/DEA/ESTER system reached the ultralow IFT; (iii) the possible mechanism of effect of LDEA components on the IFT and oil phase adaptability was proposed as the synergistic process among the hydrogen bonding, alkali effect, and interface self-assembly of molecules in the interfacial layer. The contribution of these three factors were hydrogen bonding > alkali effect > interface self-assembly.     

表面活性剂对低渗透油藏渗吸的影响

采用不同类型的表面活性剂进行自发渗吸实验,并对表面活性剂改善岩石润湿性、降低界面张力的能力进行了分析。实验结果表明,阴离子型表面活性剂改善润湿性的能力好于其他类型的表面活性剂,且在岩心中的自发渗吸效果最好,这是由于阴离子型表面活性剂改善润湿性的机理为离子对形成机理,强于阳离子的吸附机理;接触角是决定渗吸能否发生的决定性因素,只有接触角小于70°时渗吸才能发生;界面张力影响渗吸速度和最终采出程度,对于渗透率为1 mD的岩心,最佳界面张力为10~(-1) mN/m。     

双子(Gemini)表面活性剂合成及研究进展

综述了阳离子型、阴离子型、非离子型和两性离子型四类双子表面活性剂的合成及研究进展,指出未来双子表面活性剂研究的主要方向为获得更高的表面活性、降低合成和使用成本、不同类型的表面活性剂协同强化、提高安全环保性和拓宽应用领域等。     

Biodegradability Study of the Biosurfactant Contained in a Crude Extract from Corn Steep Water

Over the last few years, the global biosurfactant market has raised due to the increasing awareness among consumers, for the use of biological or bio-based products. Because of their composition, it can be speculated that these are more biocompatible and more biodegradable than their chemical homologous. However, at the moment, no studies exist in the literature about the biodegradability of biosurfactants. In this work, a biosurfactant contained in a crude extract, obtained from a corn wet-milling industry stream that ferments spontaneously in the presence of lactic acid bacteria, was subjected to a biodegradation study, without addition of external microbial biomass, under different conditions of temperature (5–45 °C), biodegradation time (15–55 days), and pH (5–7). For that, a Box–Behnken factorial design was applied, which allowed to predict the percentage of biodegradation for the biosurfactant contained in the crude extract, between the range of the independent variables selected in the study, obtaining biodegradation values between 3 and 80%. The percentage of biodegradation for the biosurfactant was calculated based on the increase in the surface tension of samples of the crude extract. Furthermore, it was also possible to predict the variation in t_1/2 for the biosurfactant (time to achieve the 50% of biodegradation) under different conditions.     

Strain hardening behaviors and mechanisms of polyurethane under various strain rate loading

The uniaxial tension experiments are performed on thermoplastic polyurethane to investigate its mechanical behaviors and related potential mechanisms, and the loading strain rate is designing to be wide ranging from 0.0001 to 1 s⁻¹. It is found that the polyurethane presents an obvious rate-dependence, and the stress strain curves share distinct strain hardening characteristics under the investigated strain rates. Furthermore, the strain hardening ratios are sharing nearly same trends and appear to be influenced by both strain rate and the induced adiabatic heating. Besides, the ratio is also strain-dependent on previous loading history. Then, a two-dimension unit cell model is built to investigate potential equivalent mechanisms, of which the hard phase as inclusion is equivalent with crystallization zone, crosslinking sites, and so forth. The simulation results facilitate to explain the distinct strain hardening ratios, even for the matrix from the extrapolated curves under super-low strain rate loading. Finally, the analogic mechanisms of equivalent hard inclusions are proposed, which can reasonably explain the strain rate- and strain-dependence characteristics of polyurethane mechanical behaviors.     

铝硅酸盐玻璃拉薄方法研究

对铝硅酸盐玻璃生产进行了科学计算,对超薄玻璃拉薄过程中存在的问题进行了原因分析,并结合实际情况开发了新的拉薄工艺,有效地实现了铝硅酸盐的拉薄生产。     

Energy dissipation capacity of fibre reinforced concrete under biaxial tension–compression load. Part I: Test equipment and work of fracture

The objective of this research was to analyse the differences in the dissipated energy under uniaxial tension and biaxial tension–compression load of fibre reinforced concretes using the Wedge Splitting Test. Under biaxial load the specimens were subjected to compressive stress ratios from 10% to 50% of the concrete compressive strength perpendicular to the direction of the tensile load.Under biaxial tension–compression load the energy dissipation capacity of the specimens decreases compared to the uniaxial tension load case on average 20–30%. It is believed that the decrease is a result of the damage mechanism of the concrete matrix and deterioration of the fibre–matrix and/or aggregate–cement paste interfaces in case the section is additionally loaded with compression stresses. This indicates that dimensioning of concrete elements under biaxial stress states using material parameters obtained from tests conducted on specimens under uniaxial tensile load is unsafe and could potentially lead to a non-conservative design.In the second part of this paper the extent of the fracture process zone under uniaxial tension and biaxial tension–compression load will be examined with the Acoustic Emission technique and the reasons for decrease of the energy dissipation capacity under biaxial load will be further discussed.     

Interface control for resolved CFD-DEM with capillary interactions

In this work, a resolved CFD–DEM coupling model for the simulation of gas-liquid-solid flows is developed: the interface capturing method based on the colour function is employed for fluids (i.e. a gas and liquid) whilst Discrete Element Method (DEM) is used for particles. The Volume Penalisation (VP) method is adopted to consider the hydrodynamic interactions between fluids and particles along with the Immersed Free Surface (IFS) method, which artificially extends the gas-liquid interface into the interior of the particle to account for the wettability. The unique point of the proposed model is that the thickness of the gas-liquid interface can be controlled by using both interface compression and diffuse interface techniques simultaneously. From the simulation results, it is presented that the accurate evaluation of the surface tension force as well as the capillary force can be achieved by appropriately controlling the interface thickness. Moreover, the major two methods in the literature to calculate the capillary force are compared in this work. The validity of the proposed model is presented for both static and dynamic cases. The behaviour of two colliding particles with a dynamic liquid bridge is then simulated to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model to a complex three-phase system.     

The control of paracetamol particle size and surface morphology through crystallisation in a spray dryer

The parameters governing the crystallisation of paracetamol using various conventional techniques has been extensively studied, however the factors influencing the drug crystallisation using spray drying is not as well understood. The aim of this work was to investigate the crystallisation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient through evaporative crystallisation using a spray dryer to study the physicochemical properties of the drug and to use semi-empirical equations to gain insight into the morphology and particle size of the dried powder. Paracetamol solutions were spray dried at various inlet temperatures ranging from 60 °C to 120 °C and also from a series of inlet feed solvent compositions ranging from 50/50% v/v ethanol/water to 100% ethanol and solid-state characterisation was done. The size and morphology of the dried materials were altered with a change in spray drying parameters, with an increase in inlet temperature leading to an increase in particle Sauter mean diameter (from 3.0 to 4.4 µm) and a decrease in the particle size with an increase in ethanol concentration in the feed (from 4.6 to 4.4 µm) as a result of changes in particle density and atomised droplet size. The morphology of the dried particles consisted of agglomerates of individual crystallites bound together into larger semi-spherical agglomerates with a higher tendency for particles having crystalline ridges to form at higher ethanol concentrations of the feed.