The Knowledge of the Acrylamide Aqueous Solution Polymerization

The acrylamide is a kind of white crystal chemical, it is the raw material in the production of the polyacrylamide, and it is a kind of unsaturated amides. Hereinbelow are the related knowledge of the acrylamide aqueous solution polymerization.

1.    The effect of the chain transfer to the solvent

The free radical is a very active reaction center; it can not only evoke the monomer molecules, but also capture an atom from the solvent molecule in the reaction with the solvent, such as the hydrogen or the chlorine, to meet it is unsaturated valence. The stronger of the ability which the solvent molecule provides this atom, the stronger of the chain transfer function. The result of this chain transfer is to reduce the molecular weight of the polymer; if the activity of free radical from the reaction decreases, the polymerization rate will also be reduced.

2.    The acrylamide is a type of water soluble monomer

Its polymer is also soluble in the water. To adopt the aqueous solution as the solvent in the polymerization, the advantage is cheap, non-toxic, small chain transfer constant, the solubility of the monomer and the polymer is good, which is the heterogeneous polymerization.

3.    The effects to the decomposition of the initiator

The azo initiator decomposition rate is barely affected by the solvent, however, the organic peroxide initiator is much easier affected by the solvent. This effect is increasing by different initiators as the below sequence: the hydrocarbons, the alkanes, the clcohols, the amines, the result of the induced decomposition is that the trigger efficiency is reduced.

4. The solubility of the polymers: the characteristics of the solvent solubility to the polymer control the morphology and its viscosity of the active chain, it determine the chain termination rate and the velocity distribution of the molecular weight.

5. The acrylamide is a kind of excellent flocculant with good water solubility, it has been widely used in the oil drilling, the mineral processing, the chemical industry and the sewage treatment etc.

Because of the large amount of the hear generated in the polymerization, the concentration of the acrylamide monomer should not be too big in order not to cause the cross-linking which will affect the water solubility of the final product, the appropriate concentration of the acrylamide monomer is 20% ~ 30%.

Acrylamide Polymer Introduction

There are many types of the Acrylamide Polymers, that is the polyacrylamide, generally they are divided into two major types, one type is the homopolymer of the compound acrylamide, another is the copolymer of the acrylamide and the other monomers. Because the polyacrylamide is of the water-soluble polymer, it has been widely used in the oil fields. Along with the development of the oil filed technology, how to improve the oil collecting rate and recovery rate has become an essential measurement to keep the sustainable development of the oil fields. In order to meet the above mentioned requirement, the production and research of the polyacrylamide has been gained more and more attention.

In the ninety’s of the last nineteenth century, the polyacrylamide has been successfully developed, but it was not been put into the mass industrialized production till the fifties of the twentieth century. 

In China, the development of the polyacrylamide industry is ten years later than the other developed countries, besides, the production scale is relatively small in the very beginning. This situation kept no change till the end of the seventy’s, the booming development of the oil industry promoted the development of the polyacrylamide industry. Although the production volume of production tripled over the last ten years, the quality and the quantity of the product still can not meet the needs from the continuously increasing development of the oil industry. After the government five year plan was launched, the scientific research institutions in China began the deep study of the polyacrylamide and have made remarkable progress both in the application and in the performance test.

Now, the development of the polyacrylamide has become increasingly mature, there are more and more production methods in China, and the volume and the quality of the production is gradually stable. In the future development, the polyacrylamide is most likely to be applied to more and more practical fields.