L'objectif de ce travail, s'inscrivant dans le contexte de l'EOR chimique par voie tensioactive, est de développer un tensiomètre microfluidique permettant de mesurer de manière continue la tension interfaciale (IFT) entre des formulations EOR et des pétroles bruts. Le tensiomètre développé repose sur un co-écoulement coaxial dans deux capillaires, conduisant principalement à deux types d'écoulement : la formation d'un jet d'un fluide dans l'autre, ou la formation de gouttes créées par l'instabilité de Rayleigh-Plateau. En utilisant le modèle de Guillot et al. permettant de décrire la transition expérimentale entre un régime de gouttes et un régime de jet, il est possible de remonter à l'IFT. Dans ces travaux, les différents régimes d'écoulement ont été étudiés expérimentalement et comparer à la transition théorique. Ensuite, la plage de paramètres exploitables expérimentalement a été établie en analysant les différentes hypothèses et limites du modèle. La méthode a alors pu être mise en ¿uvre avec différents fluides couvrant plus de quatre décades de valeurs d'IFT (25 à 2.10-3 mN/m). Néanmoins, le tensiomètre développé est un tensiomètre dynamique, ce qui requiert une étude spécifique des cinétiques de diffusion et d'adsorption des tensioactifs afin de déterminer leur impact sur la mesure de l'IFT dans le cadre des formulations EOR. Dans le cas des tensioactifs à cinétiques rapides, nous avons pu réaliser l'optimisation d'une formulation EOR modèle en déterminant le minimum d'IFT en fonction de la salinité de la formulation. Pour les systèmes présentant une cinétique lente, une méthode de pré-conditionnement a été proposée afin de pouvoir réaliser la mesure d'IFT. / The aim of this work on surfactant chemical EOR is to develop a microfluidic tensiometer allowing a continuous measurement of the interfacial tension (IFT) between crude oil and aqueous solutions. The developed tensiometer is based on a coaxial co-flow inside a capillary leading mainly to two regimes of flow: formation of a jet of one fluid in another one or formation of droplets created by the Rayleigh-Plateau instability. By using the model developed by Guillot et al. which describes the experimental transition between a droplet regime and a jet regime, it is possible calculate the IFT. In this work, the different flow regimes were studied in order to correlate the experimental and the theoretical transitions. Then, the limits of the microfluidics tensiometer were evaluated and the impact of the hypotheses of the model on the IFT measurement were analysed. Then, the method has been applied to various fluids covering an IFT range of more than four decades (25 to 2.10-2 mN/m). However, as the developed tensiometer is a dynamic tensiometer, a specific study of kinetic aspects have been performed in order to evaluate the impact on the IFT value. For rapid kinetics surfactants, we optimized a model EOR formulation by determining the salinity leading to the IFT minimum. This optimization was performed thanks to HTE. For slow kinetics system, a pre-conditionning method has been proposed in order to obtain the IFT.

La coextrusion est un process industriel de fabrication de films minces composés de plusieurs couches de polymères (PP/PP-g-Anhydride Maléique (PP-g-AM)/EVOH/PP-g-AM/PP) associant de propriétés intéressantes au matériau final. Lors de ce procédé, les films obtenus ne sont pas transparents mais présentent des granités. En effet, le liant ajouté contient des chaînes de PP-g-AM s’interpénètrent dans une couche du matériau et les têtes anhydride maléique réagissent avec l’autre couche créant in-situ des copolymères PP-g-AM-g-EVOH à l’interface.Mon premier travail était de mettre en évidence le rôle primordial des instabilités interfaciales sur la diminution de la transparence des films. Ceci a été rendu possible grâce à une observation des coupes transversales des films. Nous avons vu que plus la variation de l’épaisseur interne est grande, plus la qualité optique du film est mauvaise. Cette amplitude de variation est exacerbée dans le sens de la coextrusion. La cristallisation du PP observable au microscope optique par des sphérolites n’intervient qu’au second ordre.Il est connu que l’interface est stabilisée par la tension interfaciale, c’est pourquoi, dans un second temps, l’étude de l’interface a été menée La tension interfaciale a été mesurée par la méthode de relaxation de la goutte déformée. À une température supérieure à la température de fusion des deux polymères, l’EVOH est dispersé dans une matrice de liant PP-g-AM. Les gouttelettes d’EVOH sont soumises à un faible cisaillement. À l’arrêt de celui-ci, les gouttelettes relaxent pour retrouver leur forme d’équilibre, la forme sphérique. Le temps de relaxation est proportionnel à la tension interfaciale et au rapport des viscosités des polymères. Une des conséquences majeures de ces instabilités est la présence de défauts optiques rendant le film opaque, gênant pour les applications.Enfin, pour comprendre les résultats de tension interfaciale, il a fallu construire un protocole de dosage de copolymères à l’interface. Ce dosage absent de la littérature, a été le plus gros travail de ma thèse. Un protocole de dosage de copolymère à l’interface basé sur l’infrarouge est aujourd’hui validé et utilisé en recherche industrielle (ARKEMA, Serquigny). / Coextrusion is an industrial process which creates thin films of polymers (in this study : PP/PP-g-Anhydride Maleic (PP-g-AM)/EVOH/PP-g-AM/PP). These polymers give interesting properties to the final film. But some of these films have bad optical qualities with granity inside the film. Indeed, as the polymers are incompatibles, other polymers (PP-g-AM) which have adhesion role have to be added. These chains go into the interface to react with EVOH and create in situ way, copolymers PP-g-AM-EVOH.My first work was to identify the role of interfacial instabilities in the optical properties of the film. It was realised thanks to observations by optical microscope. Indeed, we have proove that there is a link between the variation of the intern thickness amplitude and the optical quality and this amplitude of variation grows in coextrusion direction. Spherulites in the bulk of each film influence less than the amplitude variation of intern thickness.This amplitude should depend on the interfacial tension, that is way, in the second part, we have measured the interfacial tension of different materials by drop deformed relaxtation method. At a temperature higher than the melted temperature of the polymers, a drop of EVOH is deformed in PP-g-AM matrix. A shear stress is applied to deformed the drop. When the shear stress is stopped, the drop from regular ellisoidal shape relaxes into its equilibrium shape, a spherical shape. The relaxation time is proportional to interfacial tension and viscosity ratio.This interfacial tension depends on the density of copolymers at the interface. So my final part was to caracterize copolymers. To titrate and study their reactivity, I had to set up a experiment which was not present in literature. This method was done by infrared and is now used in our industrial collaborator (ARKEMA, Serquigny).

This project deals with the mixed micellar and interfacial properties of mixtures of three surfactants [sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and tetraethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C12E4)] with ABA symmetrical triblock copolymer (Pluronic F127), which has many industrial applications. Evidence of F127 micellisation and interaction with surfactants in the aqueous phase is inferred through interfacial tension measurements. The solution containing diluted monomeric F127 showed complex formation with surfactants before the latter self-aggregate as pure micelles. The simultaneous presence of ionic surfactants and micellar F127 in solutions displayed a decrease of interfacial activity and led to the conclusion of F127 micelles disruption. C12E4 was found to interact differently with micellar F127 in forming mixed micelles, and no loss of interfacial activity was recorded. This “association-dissociation” behaviour of F127 and surfactants was leveraged to understand the stability of mineral oil in water emulsions formulated with them in the presence of sodium phosphate (Na3PO4). The mechanisms of emulsions breakdown were found to rely on aggregation behaviour and complex structure of F127 and surfactants mixtures in solution. Laser diffraction showed that unlike SDS and CTAB, mixed-emulsifier systems containing C12E4 are stable to both flocculation, Ostwald ripening and coalescence. Due to electrostatic repulsion between its head group and F127 hydrophilic block, and also because of the combined effect of Ostwald ripening and coalescence, CTAB emulsifier containing systems displayed quicker instability than SDS. SDS containing systems showed a progressive shifting of droplets size distributions to bimodality as SDS concentration was increased and heat exposure pursued, revealing the activity of two distinct population of droplets in the emulsions. More insight on the mechanisms underlying the stability of the three mixed emulsifier systems was gained in performing optical microscopy and rheology measurements; the results were found to be consistent with particle size distribution. / Dissertation (MSc (Applied Science: Chemical Technology))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Chemical Engineering / MSc (Applied Science: Chemical Technology) / Unrestricted

Biofuel additives have been designed to reduce vehicular emissions to the atmosphere to limit the effects of greenhouse gases on global climate change. The chemical properties of common biofuel additives exhibit ideal characteristics for use in gasoline and diesel, while limiting emissions from exhaust. As biofuel additives begin to be administered regularly to gasoline and fuel sources, the compounds will appear in spill sites, posing a risk to groundwater sources. The interactions that occur between common biofuel additives and trapped gases below the water table were analyzed in this work to further understand the potential consequences on quasi-saturated groundwater zones. The behaviour of trapped gases contaminated with different biofuel additives were analyzed in laboratory experiments conducted in a two-dimensional flow cell to demonstrate the mechanisms of gas flow through a capillary barrier resulting from modified interfacial properties in the presence of a chemical surfactant. Contamination of gas-fluid interfaces by applied biofuel additives at the pore scale resulted in the breakthrough of gas through the capillary barrier. Gas migration terminated at a critical pool height proportional to the reduction in interfacial tension induced by the administered biofuel additives. To further demonstrate the relationship between interfacial tension and critical gas pool height, an interfacial tension-macroscopic invasion percolation model was developed to simulate the transport mechanisms and behaviours of gas flow when an immobile pool is contaminated with 1-Butanol. The findings in this study provide a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms and behaviours of gas mobilization in the presence of common biofuel additives. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The use of biofuel additives in gasoline and diesel fuels has become an attractive alternative to fully petroleum-based fuels to reduce the release of vehicular greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. As fuel spills and storage tank leaks continue to be a primary source of groundwater contamination, the appearance of biofuel additives in contaminated systems will appear below the subsurface as they continue to be administered to modern gasoline and diesel fuels. This work investigated the consequences of biofuel contamination of groundwater systems containing gas trapped within pore spaces through the use of laboratory experiments and numerical modelling. Contamination of these systems with different biofuel additives displayed a similar response, in which gas had mobilized from within pore spaces and released to the atmosphere. Mobilization of trapped gas in groundwater can alter the primary hydraulic properties that characterize a particular hydrogeologic system.

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Wetting behaviors influence many aspects of life and industry from consumer product goods to oil recovery to cosmetics. While the traditional solid-liquid-vapor (SLV) system has been studied for many years now, wetting transitions in the solid-liquid-liquid (SLL) system has remained relatively unexplored. The purpose of this work is to bring light to the wetting transition of the solid-liquid-liquid system and to understand the replacement rates of initially hydrocarbon-filled microscopic cavities with water and the factors affecting these rates. Factors studied were viscosity, density, diffusion related properties, and surface related properties in both hydrocarbon-saturated and hydrocarbon-non-saturated conditions. Cylindrical microscopic cavities were etched in a silicon wafer, filled with various organic solvents dyed with fluorophores, then submerged in water. Through fluorescence microscopy techniques, the transition or replacement rates of the initially hydrocarbon-filled cavities with water in both hydrocarbon-saturated and hydrocarbon-absent water conditions are observed. Among the factors we investigated, namely viscosity, density, surface chemistry, and diffusive flux (composed of solubility and diffusivity), diffuse flux dominated replacement rates in hydrocarbon-absent water conditions. By using hydrocarbon-saturated water, diffusive flux was minimized, allowing for deeper investigation of other factors. In the hydrocarbon-saturated scenario, replacement rates are largely affected by initial fluid motion, specific cavity geometry, and cavity penetration mechanisms. Image analysis reveals the geometry of the oils in the cavities and shows how the transition from hydrocarbon-fully-filled to hydrocarbon-partially-filled states occurs in the SLL system.

The energy demand has increased dramatically in the last century, and so to have global CO2 emissions. Two critical challenges for the geo-energy sector are to develop different approaches for harvesting energy and to actively decrease atmospheric CO2 emissions. Addressing these challenges requires efficient, sustainable, and affordable technical solutions. Complex fluids are ubiquitous and offer great potential for geo-engineering applications such as the development of geo-energy, enhanced oil recovery and CO2 geological sequestration and utilization. This thesis will present new results on interfacial phenomena in CO2-fluid-mineral systems, including interfacial tension hysteresis, the effects of surface-active components on interfacial tension (surfactants, nanoparticles, organo-bentonites and asphaltenes), and the interfacial pinning of immiscible fluids on substrates. Pore-scale phenomena come together in the study of the physical properties of CO2 and its implication for both storage and assisted gravity oil drainage. Finally, we provide a better understanding of the interfacial phenomena of complex fluids and their interactions within porous media that can lead to efficient and sustainable geo-energy systems.

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The surface tension of liquid metals is an important and scientifically interesting parameter which affects many metallurgical processes such as casting, welding and melt spinning. Conventional methods for measuring surface tension are difficult to use for molten metals above temperatures of 1000 K. Containerless methods are can be used to measure the surface tension of molten metals above 1000 K. Oscillating drop method is one such method where a levitated droplet is allowed to undergo damped oscillations. Using the Rayleigh’s theory for the oscillation of force-free inviscid spherical droplets, surface tension and viscosity of the sample can be calculated from oscillation frequency and damping respectively. In this thesis, a numerical model is developed in ANSYS Fluent to simulate the oscillations of the molten metal droplet. The Volume of Fluid approach is used for multiphase modelling. The effect of numerical schemes, mesh size, and initialization boundary conditions on the frequency of oscillation and the surface tension of the liquid are studied. The single-phase model predicts the surface tension of zirconium within a range of 13% when compared to the experimental data. The validated single phase model is extended to predict the interfacial tension of a core-shell structured compound drop. We study the effect of the core and shell orientation at the time of flow initialization. The numerical model we developed predicts the interfacial tension between copper and cobalt within the range of 6.5% when compared to the experimental data. The multiphase model fails to provide any conclusive data for interfacial tension between molten iron and slag.