Surface inorganic scale formation in oil and gas industry: As adhesion and deposition processes

Abstract

Scale formation on surfaces can normally be divided into two distinct processes: a “deposition process” which refers to the process of heterogeneous nucleation and growth at the asperities of the surface and an “adhesion process” which refers to the sticking of pre-existing crystals, which have nucleated in the bulk solution, and which build up as a layer on the surface. It has been presented in this paper that the surface scale formation rate is more dominantly controlled by the “deposition process” rather than the “adhesion process”. However, the level of agitation could have inverse effects on one process to another. Only a small amount of research has been done to understand the differences of the kinetics of each of these processes. The presented work represents an experimental study of scaling tests to assess the effect of hydrodynamic conditions, using Rotating Cylinder Electrode (RCE), in a complex scaling environment, particularly supersaturated with barium/strontium sulphate and calcium carbonate, on the stainless steel substrate coated with a wide range of different industrial coatings. In addition, the effect of the surface energy and surface roughness on both processes has been studied. The paper provides data that will assist in the understanding of the controlling parameters in scale formation in different conditions, and also describes what characteristics of the surface can make it a good anti-scale surface for inorganic scale; however, the results have showed that merely one parameter cannot assure a surface as a good antifouling surface.