The influence of organic modified montmorillonite on the solution properties of copolymer containing β-cyclodextrin

In this paper, organic modified montmorillonite (O-MMT) was successfully encapsulated in acrylamide (AM)/cetyl dimethyl allyl ammonium bromide (SD-16)/modified β-cyclodextrin (M-β-CD) copolymer (denoted as ASM) by in situ polymerization. The ASM/O-MMT nanocomposite was characterized by FT-IR and TGA. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) clearly proved the exfoliation/intercalation phenomena of O-MMT in the ASM matrix. The results indicated that the introduction of the O-MMT endowed the ASM with excellent thickening efficiency, temperature resistance, salt tolerance, shear resistance. The viscosity retention rate of ASM/3 wt% O-MMT at 90 °C was 55.3%, which was higher than that of pure ASM (30.9%). The ability of salt tolerance for ASM/3 wt% O-MMT nanocomposite (Na + : 40%, Ca 2+ : 41.3% and Mg 2+ : 42%) were superior to that of ASM (Na + : 18.9%, Ca 2+ : 21.3% and Mg 2+ : 20.7%). Besides, measurement of the viscoelasticity revealed that the addition of the O-MMT significantly improved the storage modulus ( G’ ) and loss modulus ( G” ) of ASM, which could be attributed to the O-MMT sheets in the ASM act as physical crosslinkers between macromolecules. These results indicated that ASM/O-MMT nanocomposite was more suitable for enhancing oil recovery.