Citric Acid Addition to Controlling Crystallization of Barium Sulphate (BaSO4) in Pipes through Ba2+ Concentration Variation in the Solution

Abstract

The scale of barium sulphate (BaSO4) is common scale for mineral deposit that found in the offshore oil and gas exploitation. This scale is related with precipitation and grown of mineral deposit on the pipelines surface. Therefore, it results in blockage at the pipe. This paper presents the experimental scaling of barium sulphate in the laminar flow. The barium sulphate solution was prepared by mixing an equimolar solution of barium chloride (BaCl2) and sodium sulphate (Na2SO4). The flow rate is 40 ml/min at temperature of 50 °C. The solutions added by citric acid (C6H8O7) with variation concentration of 0 ppm, 5 ppm, and 10 ppm. The crystallization of barium sulphate was measured by using the conductivity meters. The barite crytals were dried and characterized by using SEM/EDX and XRD. The SEM Results show that the morphology of Barite scale was change in the presence of citric acid. The mineral of barium sulphate was pure barite based on the XRD phase analysis. The presence of citric acid clearly inhibit the crystallization of barium sulphate.