1,2-propanediol-cellulose-acrylamide graft copolymers

Abstract

1,2-Propanediol–cellulose–acrylamide graft copolymers (PCACs) were developed for enhanced oil recovery. They were prepared with acrylamide and 1,2-propanediol (PDO)–cellulose, which was formed through the addition of glycols to cellulose by the Shotten–Baumann reaction between 3-chloro-1,2-propanediol and cellulose. The graft copolymerization was initiated with a redox system between Ce4+ and glycols in cellulose. The infrared spectrum of PDO–cellulose had some characteristic absorption bands around 2960 (νCH) and 1050 cm−1 (νCO) that also appeared for the PDO group and pyranose ring of cellulose, respectively. The rate of Ce4+ consumption by PDO–cellulose was investigated through the calculation of the overall kinetic constant from the slopes of ln(D − DR) versus time (where D is the absorbance and DR is the absorbance of the original polysaccharide solution) The results showed that PDO–cellulose had high reactivity and that there were two mechanisms of oxidation by Ce4+ with PDO–cellulose. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 92: 3022–3029, 2004