Effect of Mineral Salts on Steady Rheological Properties of Nonionic Hydrophobically Modified Polyacrylamide and Its Stress-Relaxation Behavior

A micelle-forming polymerizable surfactant monomer, octylphenol polyoxyethylene acrylate (OP-10-AC), was synthesized, and then OP-10-AC was copolymerized with acrylamide (AM) to form nonionic hydrophobically modified polyacrylamide P(AM/OP-10-AC) through micellar copolymerization. In the absence of surfactants, it was investigated in detail that the effect of mineral salts and temperature on steady rheological properties of P(AM/OP-10-AC) solutions and the effect of concentrations on reduced viscosity of P(AM/OP-10-AC) in a dilute solution. The results indicate that concentrations of the copolymer, mineral salts and temperature had a strong influence on shear viscosity of P(AM/OP-10-AC) solutions, and the trend of reduced viscosity of P(AM/OP-10-AC) solutions was distinctly different from polyacrylamide with increasing concentrations of testing solutions. In addition, it was also investigated that stress-relaxation behavior of an aqueous solution of P(AM/OP-10-AC)/KCl. As a result, a stress-relaxation model of the copolymer solutions was proposed, which can further verify the correctness of the conclusion on stress-relaxation behavior of hydrophobic association hydrogels in the paper reported previously.