Responsive Stabilization of Nanoparticles for Extreme Salinity and High-Temperature Reservoir Applications

Colloidal stabilization of nanoparticles under extreme salinity and high temperature conditions is a key challenge in the development of next generation technologies for subsurface reservoir characterization and oil recovery. Polyelectrolytes have been investigated as nanoparticle stabilizers, but typically fail at high ionic strengths and elevated temperatures due to excessive charge screening and dehydration. We report an approach to nanoparticle stabilization that overcomes these limitations, and exploits the antipolyelectrolyte phenomenon, in which screening of intrachain electrostatic interactions causes a polyzwitterion chain to undergo a structural transition from a collapsed globule to a more open coil-like regime with increases in ionic strength and temperature. Small-angle neutron scattering on a model zwitterionic polymer in solution indicated an increase in both radius of gyration and excluded volume parameter of the polymer with increases in ionic strength and temperature. The model zwitterion was subsequently incorporated within a polymeric stabilizer for nanoparticles under harsh reservoir conditions, and used to functionalize hydrophilic (silica) as well as hydrophobic (polystyrene) nanoparticles. Long-term colloidal stability was achieved at salt concentrations up to 120,000 mg/dm3 at 90 °C, approximately twice the stability limit previously reported in the literature. The approach can be broadly generalized to a large class of synthetic polyzwitterions, and can be adapted to a wide variety of other colloidal systems in which demands placed by extreme salinity and temperature conditions must be met.