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AssigneeThe Curators of the University of Missouri
InventorsJingyang Pu, Baojun Bai, Thomas Schuman
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This invention is broadly concerned with compositions and processes for oilfield applications. More specifically, this invention relates to novel polymer constructed packages that, when pumped into a petroleum well, provide tunable characteristics of transformation and delayed self-assembly with each other under reservoir conditions to yield strong, elastic, bulk gel materials. The compositions comprise a polymer, assembling agents, and optional additives used for the re-assembly stage are uniformly-distributed within the initial gel particles. The polymer particle packages absorb water and swell upon exposure to water, thus exposing the “assembling agents” that enable re-assembly. Both swelling and re-assembly are proportionally controlled via compositions to be tunable to allow functional dispersion and subsequent self-assembly under various reservoir conditions.
A method of altering or controlling a fluid present in an environment comprising introducing a composition into the environment so that said composition contacts the fluid, said composition comprising a plurality of swellable particles comprising an assembling agent interspersed among crosslinkable polymer chains, said assembling agent being one that will associate with the polymer chains upon exposure to the fluid and being selected from the group consisting of monomers, oligomers, polymers, copolymers, Group III-VII transition metal containing molecules, Group III-VII transition metal ions, methylene bisacrylamide, polyethylene glycol, dimethacrylate, phenol-formaldehyde, diallylamine, triallylamine, divinyl sulfonate, diethylene glycol, aldehydes, polyethyleneimine, dichlorophenol, benzoyl peroxide, di-tert-butyl peroxide, dibutyl hydrogen phosphite, and mixtures thereof.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.