Rheological study of nanoparticle-based cationic surfactant solutions

Abstract

Worm-like micelles are of special interest among the many forms of surfactant aggregates because of their usefulness in research and technology. Micelles are elongated, flexible aggregates formed by amphiphilic molecules spontaneously self-organizing in liquids. The nature of the surfactant determines its unique shape, which may be altered by mixing it with other substances or changing physicochemical variables like as temperature, pH, or salinity. The rheology of viscoelastic fluid systems is currently being modified using nanoparticles. This method, which was just introduced about 10 years ago, has shown to be highly promising, producing significant improvements in rheological properties, particularly at reservoir temperatures. The goal of this research is to investigate and assess the rheology of an aqueous cationic surfactant solution based on graphene oxide nanoparticles. The thermodynamics, structure and rheology of nanoparticle-based cationic surfactant solutions were investigated experimentally. According to structural and thermodynamic investigations in surfactant-nanoparticle mixtures, micelle-nanoparticle interactions arise as physical crosslinks between micelles. The existence of these interactions is shown to generate considerable viscosity and viscoelasticity in wormlike micelles, even when the fluid is Newtonian in the absence of nanoparticles. The viscosity, shear modulus and relaxation time all increase as particle concentration increases. Adding nanoparticles generates a network of micellar entanglements as a result of that. Our results demonstrate that adding nanoparticles to surfactant solutions provides for a one-of-a-kind method of altering fluid rheology under a range of circumstances.

Keywords

Surfactant / Wormlike micelles / Nanoparticles / Viscosity / Modulus / Rheology

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