Highly Efficient Recovery of Water-Soluble Polymersin Synergistic Kinetic Inhibition of Gas Hydrate Formation

The recovery of synthetic water-soluble polymers is of high environmental and economic importance. We report that these polymers are completely recovered using thermoresponsive polymer-brushed superparamagnetic nanoparticles. Thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-ran-N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (RCP) and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-ran-N,N-dimethylacrylamide)-block-poly(acrylic acid) (BCP) were used as the water-soluble polymer to be recovered and as the corona layer of iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), respectively. Both IONPs-BCP and RCP were simply collected by a magnet after heating, and the IONP-BCP/RCP mixture allowed for good kinetic inhibition of methane hydrate formation. This work reveals that the synergistic behavior of IONPs as recovery agents is practically utilized for the recovery of synthetic water-soluble polymers.