MITIGATING SILICATE SCALING USING GREEN INHIBITOR

Silicate scaling has becomes the major problem in oil and gas industry
nowadays. The production of oil and gas is affected because of this silicate scaling as
the production is stop to remove the scale from the equipments, which need a lot of
money and time consuming. Usually, the silicate scale is removed by using the
mechanical work that is physically removing the scale from the equipments. Thus, an
inhibitor is created to prevent or slowdown the formation the silicate scaling by using
chemical. The use of chemical as the inhibitor created new problem to environment,
so study on green inhibitor is done to reduce the use of chemical in silicate scaling
inhibitor. The reactions of minerals after the flooding of alkaline surfactant polymer
(ASP) cause silica deposition. The factors such as concentration of magnesium ions
and calcium ions, temperature and pH value associate the formation of scale. Five of
types of plants have been identified to be test as the green inhibitor to prevent or
slow down the scaling. The plants are 1) Psidium Guajava (Jambu Batu) 2) Centella
Asiatica 3) Persicaria odorata (Kesum) and 4) Orthosiphon Stamineus (Misai
Kucing). These plants have a good potential as the green inhibitors as they have a lot
of benefits in medical practice and abundant in Malaysia. Suitable experiments are
conducted to determine the efficiency of this green inhibitor in mitigating silicate
scale. Three sets of test have been carried out to determine the potential green
inhibitor to mitigate the silicate scale. The tests are 1) Test at different pH values to
investigate the tendency of silicate scale to form. 2) Test at different concentrations
of inhibitor to determine how the concentration effect the performance of inhibitor.
3) Performance test of Orthosiphon Stamineus and Centella Asiatica as inhibitor to
mitigate silicate scale. The green inhibitors show a good potential to become
alternative inhibitor for silicate scale, but further studies should be done to explore
more their potential as green inhibitor.