Novel cationic copolymeric surfactants bearing imidazole moiety as petro-dispersing / petro-collecting agents: Synthesis, surface activity and characterization

[Display omitted] •New cationic copolymeric surfactants bearing imidazole moiety were synthesized and characterized.•The chemical structures of the prepared compounds were confirmed by FT-IR and 1H NMR analysis.•Finema-Ross (F-R) and Kelen-Tudos (K-T) methods were studied to investigate the composition of synthesized copolymers.•The surface activities of synthesized copolymeric surfactants have been investigated.•the petro-collecting and dispersing indices of the synthesized copolymeric surfactants are studied. Novel cationic copolymeric surfactants were designed and synthesized by the quaternization of the copolymer. The synthesized route passes through a two-step reaction, initially including the copolymerization of methacrylic acid (MAA) with 1-vinylimidazole (VIM), followed by the quaternization of the nitrogen atom in imidazole ring present in the obtained poly(VIM-co- MAA) (AI1-5)with different molar ratios, with methyl- and ethyl iodide, respectively to form AISM1-5 and AISE1-5. The chemical structure of the prepared copolymers and cationic polymeric surfactants was confirmed using different spectroscopic techniques such as FT-IR and 1H NMR. The surface-active properties of the synthesized cationic polymeric surfactants were examined. Finema-Ross (F-R) and Kelen-Tudos (K-T) methods were studied from the elemental analysis data, which included the evaluation of the nitrogen content (N%) in prepared copolymers. The monomer reactivity ratios are r1 = 0.157; r2 = 0.966 by F-R and r1 = 0.122; r2 = 0.995) by K-T methods that showed the value of r1r2 is less than the unity (0.152), which indicates the random distribution. The results showed that in sea water, AISE4 is the most distinctive as a petro-dispersant in undiluted form. As well, in diluted and undiluted forms of AISE4, the best petro-collecting capacity is observed on the surface of distilled water.