Viscoelastic properties of hydrophobically modified alkali-soluble emulsion in salt solutions

An experimental study was carried out to examine the effects of added salt on the rheology of four model hydrophobic alkali-soluble associative polymer (HASE) solutions. With increasing salt concentrations, the solution viscosities of all the model polymers decreased continuously and the viscoelastic properties of the hydrophobe-containing polymer solutions changed from predominantly elastic to viscous behavior. Model polymers with stronger hydrophobic associations were more susceptible to the presence of added salt, however such effects were weakened at high shear stresses. At a certain level of added salt, the model polymer with hydrophobes consisting of C20 alkyl chain demonstrated a unique shear-thickening behavior at high shear stresses. The critical shear stress at which the shear-thickened viscosity reached the maximum value was independent of the salt concentration, but was proportional to the polymer concentration. The shear superimposed oscillation technique was employed to probe the shear-induced structural changes of the model polymer that contributed to the sheer-thickening behavior. With increasing applied shear stresses, a corresponding increase in the storage modulus (G') was observed at the shear-thickening region where the viscosity increased with applied stresses. This observation indicated that the shear-thickening behavior is caused by the formation of a larger number of network junctions. The increase in the network junction densities was attributed to the conversion of intra- to inter-molecular associations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.