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Surfactant science and technology
297
BOOK REVIEWS trigued the author and that he enjoys discussing it. In fact, enthusiasm for the subject matter is reflected in every chapter. It adds to the readability, another reason why your reviewer is assigning this book to an easily accessible space on his shelf.
ANTHONY M. SCHWARTZ"~ 2260 Glenmore Terrace Rockville, Maryland 20850 I" Deceased February 17, 1989.
Surfaetant Science and Technology. By DREW MEYERS, VCH Publishers, New York, 1988. xiii + 351 pp. $45.00. Not infrequently, workers in chemistry and chemical engineering find themselves, neck and crop, hurled into a problem involving the use of surface-active agents. In the majority of cases, these workers will have had at most a trivial acquaintance with surfactants or, more specifically, surface chemistry. A trip to the library, assuming that the library is complete, will bring the worker up against the thirty-odd volumes of the Surfactant Science Series published by Marcel Dekker, Inc. Valuable as these are, this is clearly not the place to start. This little book is designed to supply that starting place. The first chapter supplies an overview of the surfactant industry, including a discussion of the nature of interfaces and the nature of surfactants at interfaces. Also included are brief, useful discussions of the economic role and environmental effects of surfactants. Most helpful is a brief glossary of terms relating to surfactant chemistry. Chapter 2 covers the organic chemistry of surface-active molecules, based on the well-known classification by type. Considering the major applications of nonionics, however, this section appears to the reviewer to be somewhat skimpy.
Unaccountably, there is no mention of the important sorbitan derivatives. The remaining chapters cover, respectively, surfactants in solution (including micellization); solubilization, microemulsions, and micellar catalysis; the liquid / vapor interface; emulsions (including a useful discussion of HLB); foams; and the liquid/solid interface. An extensive list of references is included, as well as an adequate index. The illustrations are well done. The discussion in each case is clear, although rigor is frequently sacrificed. In a book of this sort, organization is a problem, but I would question reserving the discussion of the electrical double layer to as late a point as the solid/ liquid interface, thus leaving the reader in the dark as to the effect of electrostatic repulsion in the discussion of emulsions. The topic of steric stabilization is apparently ignored. The book appears free of errors or misprints, and is well produced. It will serve its intended audience well.
Surfactant Based Mobility Control. Progress in Miscible Flood Enhanced Oil Recovery. Edited by DUANE H. SMITH. Amer. Chem. Soc., Washington, DC, 1988. 449 pp. $94.95. Oil recovery from underground petroleum reservoirs usually leaves about two-thirds of the oil trapped in the porous matrix of the reservoir rock. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a collective term for various schemes devised to increase the oil recovery. Many schemes require suffactants in order to decrease the interfacial tension between the oil and the water from the normal 10 mN m -~ to below 0.01 mN m -~ and have been used on their own but with very limited success. Gas flooding with CO2, N2, or intermediate hydrocarbons is regarded by many as the main hope for EOR. However, there is one major problem: because of low gas viscosity, compared to oil and water, the injected gases never make contact with much of the reservoir or the residual oil; they travel more or less directly from injection to production well. On the other hand, if the area of the reservoir swept could be significantly increased and the hydrodynamic stability made more stable, then the process of gas (EOR) flooding could be more controlled. Mobility control is therefore of utmost importance to gas flooding. The most promising method for this mobility
control is the use of surfactants to create dispersions (emulsions and foams) of the injection and reservoir fluids. This book is a collection of 22 papers from a symposium discussing the subject of surfactant-based mobility control sponsored by the American Chemical Society. It summarizes recent research very well. The first three chapters cover the needs for surfactant-based mobility control. The next eight in the second section present phase behavior, surfactant design, and adsorption effects. The third section of five chapters is on mechanisms and theory of dispersion flow especially that of "foam" in porous media. The last section of six chapters contains descriptions of research on dispersion floods in the laboratory and field. All the chapters have been written by well-known experts in their field and cover many of the important topics. The book is therefore ideal for those needing to master the subject, although a general background text on EOR might be a necessary starting point for some. The introductory article by D. H. Smith is a masterly coverage of the whole problem, giving a very clear status report, useful to all. The articles by J, K. Borchardt et al. give much useful technical information on a wide variety of surfactants, and that by A. I. Shirley is a very clear introduction into the micromechanisms o f " f o a m " formation in porous media.
PAUL BECHER P.O. Box 7335 Wilmington, Delaware 19803
Journalof Colloidand InterfaceScience, Vol. 130,No. 1, June 1989
BOOK REVIEWS trigued the author and that he enjoys discussing it. In fact, enthusiasm for the subject matter is reflected in every chapter. It adds to the readability, another reason why your reviewer is assigning this book to an easily accessible space on his shelf.
ANTHONY M. SCHWARTZ"~ 2260 Glenmore Terrace Rockville, Maryland 20850 I" Deceased February 17, 1989.
Surfaetant Science and Technology. By DREW MEYERS, VCH Publishers, New York, 1988. xiii + 351 pp. $45.00. Not infrequently, workers in chemistry and chemical engineering find themselves, neck and crop, hurled into a problem involving the use of surface-active agents. In the majority of cases, these workers will have had at most a trivial acquaintance with surfactants or, more specifically, surface chemistry. A trip to the library, assuming that the library is complete, will bring the worker up against the thirty-odd volumes of the Surfactant Science Series published by Marcel Dekker, Inc. Valuable as these are, this is clearly not the place to start. This little book is designed to supply that starting place. The first chapter supplies an overview of the surfactant industry, including a discussion of the nature of interfaces and the nature of surfactants at interfaces. Also included are brief, useful discussions of the economic role and environmental effects of surfactants. Most helpful is a brief glossary of terms relating to surfactant chemistry. Chapter 2 covers the organic chemistry of surface-active molecules, based on the well-known classification by type. Considering the major applications of nonionics, however, this section appears to the reviewer to be somewhat skimpy.
Unaccountably, there is no mention of the important sorbitan derivatives. The remaining chapters cover, respectively, surfactants in solution (including micellization); solubilization, microemulsions, and micellar catalysis; the liquid / vapor interface; emulsions (including a useful discussion of HLB); foams; and the liquid/solid interface. An extensive list of references is included, as well as an adequate index. The illustrations are well done. The discussion in each case is clear, although rigor is frequently sacrificed. In a book of this sort, organization is a problem, but I would question reserving the discussion of the electrical double layer to as late a point as the solid/ liquid interface, thus leaving the reader in the dark as to the effect of electrostatic repulsion in the discussion of emulsions. The topic of steric stabilization is apparently ignored. The book appears free of errors or misprints, and is well produced. It will serve its intended audience well.
Surfactant Based Mobility Control. Progress in Miscible Flood Enhanced Oil Recovery. Edited by DUANE H. SMITH. Amer. Chem. Soc., Washington, DC, 1988. 449 pp. $94.95. Oil recovery from underground petroleum reservoirs usually leaves about two-thirds of the oil trapped in the porous matrix of the reservoir rock. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a collective term for various schemes devised to increase the oil recovery. Many schemes require suffactants in order to decrease the interfacial tension between the oil and the water from the normal 10 mN m -~ to below 0.01 mN m -~ and have been used on their own but with very limited success. Gas flooding with CO2, N2, or intermediate hydrocarbons is regarded by many as the main hope for EOR. However, there is one major problem: because of low gas viscosity, compared to oil and water, the injected gases never make contact with much of the reservoir or the residual oil; they travel more or less directly from injection to production well. On the other hand, if the area of the reservoir swept could be significantly increased and the hydrodynamic stability made more stable, then the process of gas (EOR) flooding could be more controlled. Mobility control is therefore of utmost importance to gas flooding. The most promising method for this mobility
control is the use of surfactants to create dispersions (emulsions and foams) of the injection and reservoir fluids. This book is a collection of 22 papers from a symposium discussing the subject of surfactant-based mobility control sponsored by the American Chemical Society. It summarizes recent research very well. The first three chapters cover the needs for surfactant-based mobility control. The next eight in the second section present phase behavior, surfactant design, and adsorption effects. The third section of five chapters is on mechanisms and theory of dispersion flow especially that of "foam" in porous media. The last section of six chapters contains descriptions of research on dispersion floods in the laboratory and field. All the chapters have been written by well-known experts in their field and cover many of the important topics. The book is therefore ideal for those needing to master the subject, although a general background text on EOR might be a necessary starting point for some. The introductory article by D. H. Smith is a masterly coverage of the whole problem, giving a very clear status report, useful to all. The articles by J, K. Borchardt et al. give much useful technical information on a wide variety of surfactants, and that by A. I. Shirley is a very clear introduction into the micromechanisms o f " f o a m " formation in porous media.
PAUL BECHER P.O. Box 7335 Wilmington, Delaware 19803
Journalof Colloidand InterfaceScience, Vol. 130,No. 1, June 1989