Effect of polymer addition on the phase behavior of oil-water-surfactant systems of Winsor III type

Ternary oil-water-surfactant systems can give rise to an O/W microemulsion in equilibrium with excess oil, a W/O microemulsion in equilibrium with excess water, or a bicontinuous microemulsion in equilibrium with excess oil and water. This type of phase behavior has been known for a long time and the three systems are often referred to as Winsor I, Winsor II and Winsor III, respectively after the British scientist P. A. Winsor who pioneered the area. The Winsor systems are technically important and well understood today. It was later found that addition of a polymer to the oil-water-surfactant system can influence the phase behavior considerably. While a hydrophilic polymer will be incorporated in the water phase and a hydrophobic polymer in the oil phase, an amphiphilic polymer with the right hydrophilic-lipophilic balance may expand the middle phase microemulsion in a Winsor III system. Expansion of the middle phase of such a system will lead to a reduction of the oil/microemulsion and the microemulsion/water interfacial tensions. This can be practically important, and the effect is currently of considerable interest for so-called surfactant flooding for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Boosting the middle phase of the Winsor III system by addition of a polymer to the surfactant system is still not an established procedure and not so well understood from a scientific point of view. In this review we summarize the work done in the field and we demonstrate that the role of the polymer is intimately linked to its interactions with the three other components in the system: the oil, the water, and the surfactant(s).