Smart Wormlike Micelles

This Brief provides an up-to-date overview of smart surfactants and describes a broad spectrum of triggers that induce the formation of wormlike micelles or reversibly tune the morphology of surfactant aggregates from wormlike micelles to another state, or vice versa. Combining the fields of chemistry, physics, polymer science, and nanotechnology, its primary focus is on the design, formulation, and processing of intelligent viscoelastic surfactant solutions, covering the scientific principles governing responsiveness to one or more particular triggers, down to the end-use-driven functions. The first chapter explains why and how surfactants self-assemble into viscoelastic wormlike micellar solutions reminiscent of polymer solutions, while the following chapters show how the response to a given trigger translates into macroscopic rheological changes, including temperature, light, pH, CO2, redox, hydrocarbon, etc. The last chapter demonstrates the applications of these viscoelastic assemblies in oil and gas production, drag reduction, biomaterials, cleaning processes, electrorheological and photorheological fluids. Comments and perspectives are provided at the end to conclude this Brief. This Brief is aimed at chemists, physicists, chemical engineers and nano-scientists who are involved in self-assemblies and applications of surfactants, as well as graduates in physical chemistry. Yujun Feng, Ph.D., is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, P. R. China. Zonglin Chu, Ph.D., is a post-doctoral fellow working at the Physical Chemistry Institute, University of Zürich, Switzerland. Cécile A. Dreiss, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King’s College London, UK.

Wormlike Micelles describes the latest developments in the field including new systems, characterization and applications.

Wormlike micelles are elongated flexible self-assembled structures created from the aggregation of amphiphiles and their resulting dynamic networks have gained attention for a number of uses, particularly in the oil industry. Written by experts, Wormlike Micelles describes the latest developments in the field providing an authoritative guide on the subject. The book starts with an introductory chapter giving an overview of the area and then looks at the three key topics of new wormlike micelle systems, characterization and applications. New systems covered in the first part include reverse wormlike micelles and stimuli-responsive wormlike micelles. The second part explores cutting-edge techniques that have led to advances in the understanding of their structure and dynamics, including direct imaging techniques and the combination of rheology with small-angle neutron scattering techniques. Finally, the book reviews their use in oil and gas well treatments as well as surfactant drag reducing solutions. Aimed at postgraduate students and researchers, this text is essential reading for anyone interested in soft matter systems.

This book introduces recent progress in stimuli-responsive interfaces constructed on colloidal materials such as micelles and vesicles and on solid material surfaces. There is discussion of the effect of stimuli such as light, heat, pH, and electric field on changes in the morphology of the molecules at the interfaces and that of colloidal materials. The changes in the properties, such as gelation ability, dispersibility, and emulsification ability, of the resultant bulk materials containing these colloidal materials or those of the solid material are also covered. In addition, design criteria for high sensitivity, quick responsiveness, and high reversibility are presented. In each author’s original system, the correlations between molecular-level responses and bulk functional responses are described as well. This book serves as an excellent guide to designing and fabricating novel, functional, eco-friendly stimuli-responsive interfaces and related materials.

The co-evolution of a strong theoretical framework alongside application of a range of sophisticated experimental tools engendered rapid advancement in the study ofgiant micelles. Beginning with Anacker and Debye's 1951 experimental study of elongated micelles by light scattering and their subsequent theoretical inference that the thermodynamic

This book aims at presenting, describing, and summarizing the latest advances in polymer flooding regarding the chemical synthesis of the EOR agents and the numerical simulation of compositional models in porous media, including a description of the possible applications of nanotechnology acting as a booster of traditional chemical EOR processes. A large part of the world economy depends nowadays on non-renewable energy sources, most of them of fossil origin. Though the search for and the development of newer, greener, and more sustainable sources have been going on for the last decades, humanity is still fossil-fuel dependent. Primary and secondary oil recovery techniques merely produce up to a half of the Original Oil In Place. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes are aimed at further increasing this value. Among these, chemical EOR techniques (including polymer flooding) present a great potential in low- and medium-viscosity oilfields. • Describes recent advances in chemical enhanced oil recovery. • Contains detailed description of polymer flooding and nanotechnology as promising boosting tools for EOR. • Includes both experimental and theoretical studies. About the Authors Patrizio Raffa is Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. He focuses on design and synthesis of new polymeric materials optimized for industrial applications such as EOR, coatings and smart materials. He (co)authored about 40 articles in peer reviewed journals. Pablo Druetta works as lecturer at the University of Groningen (RUG) and as engineering consultant. He received his Ph.D. from RUG in 2018 and has been teaching at a graduate level for 15 years. His research focus lies on computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

An introduction to the state-of-the-art of the diverse self-assembly systems Self-Assembly: From Surfactants to Nanoparticles provides an effective entry for new researchers into this exciting field while also giving the state of the art assessment of the diverse self-assembling systems for those already engaged in this research. Over the last twenty years, self-assembly has emerged as a distinct science/technology field, going well beyond the classical surfactant and block copolymer molecules, and encompassing much larger and complex molecular, biomolecular and nanoparticle systems. Within its ten chapters, each contributed by pioneers of the respective research topics, the book: Discusses the fundamental physical chemical principles that govern the formation and properties of self-assembled systems Describes important experimental techniques to characterize the properties of self-assembled systems, particularly the nature of molecular organization and structure at the nano, meso or micro scales. Provides the first exhaustive accounting of self-assembly derived from various kinds of biomolecules including peptides, DNA and proteins. Outlines methods of synthesis and functionalization of self-assembled nanoparticles and the further self-assembly of the nanoparticles into one, two or three dimensional materials. Explores numerous potential applications of self-assembled structures including nanomedicine applications of drug delivery, imaging, molecular diagnostics and theranostics, and design of materials to specification such as smart responsive materials and self-healing materials. Highlights the unifying as well as contrasting features of self-assembly, as we move from surfactant molecules to nanoparticles. Written for students and academic and industrial scientists and engineers, by pioneers of the research field, Self-Assembly: From Surfactants to Nanoparticles is a comprehensive resource on diverse self-assembly systems, that is simultaneously introductory as well as the state of the art.

Smart Nanoparticles for Biomedicine explores smart nanoparticles that change their structural or functional properties in response to specific external stimuli (electric or magnetic fields, electromagnetic radiation, ultrasound, etc.). Particular attention is given to multifunctional nanostructured materials that are pharmacologically active and that can be actuated by virtue of their magnetic, dielectric, optically-active, redox-active, or piezoelectric properties. This important reference resource will be of great value to readers who want to learn more on how smart nanoparticles can be used to create more effective treatment solutions. Nanotechnology has enabled unprecedented control of the interactions between materials and biological entities, from the microscale, to the molecular level. Nanosurfaces and nanostructures have been used to mimic or interact with biological microenvironments, to support specific biological functions, such as cell adhesion, mobility and differentiation, and in tissue healing. Recently, a new paradigm has been proposed for nanomedicine to exploit the intrinsic properties of nanomaterials as active devices rather than as passive structural units or carriers for medications. Discusses the synthesis, characterization and applications of a new generation of smart nanoparticles for nanomedicine applications Explores the problems relating to the biocompatibility of a range of nanoparticles, outlining potential solutions Describes techniques for manipulating specific classes of nanoparticles for a variety of treatment types