Evaluating the Effectiveness of Red Onion Skin Extract Derivatives as Oilfield Scale Inhibitors
Dominica Una *
World Bank-Africa Centre of Excellence for Oilfield Chemicals Research, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria and Department of Petroleum and Gas Engineering, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Dulu Appah
Department of Petroleum and Gas Engineering, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Amieibibama Joseph
Department of Petroleum and Gas Engineering, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Onyewuchi Akaranta
World Bank-Africa Centre of Excellence for Oilfield Chemicals Research, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria and Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
With growing awareness of the environmental impact of some conventional production chemicals and concerns about the depletion of non-renewable natural resources, increased efforts are being made to use renewable and non-toxic materials in the oilfield. In this study, a potential green scale inhibitor was developed from the skin of red onions and evaluated for calcium sulphate, calcium carbonate and barium scale inhibition. Based on the different extraction processes utilized, two products were obtained and characterized using FTIR and SEM and evaluated using a static jar test procedure. The FTIR results confirmed the bands that make up the major constituents (quercetin) and other important compounds, which supports the present study. Laboratory evaluation show that ROSE can efficiently inhibit calcium sulphate scale and barium sulphate scales with a good inhibition rate of greater than 75% at an optimum dosage. Effect of temperature and dosage on inhibition performance revealed that ROSE is stable at higher temperatures and can effectively inhibit calcium and barium sulphate scales at nearly the same rate without degradation but requires additional dosage to produce same result for calcium carbonate scale. Also, the effect of time reveals that scale inhibitor performs a continuous CaSO4 and CaCO3 inhibition. Not only does ROSE perform excellently in the laboratory condition as a green scale inhibitor, but it also show a relatively close performance rate when compared to an existing commercial inhibitor which indicate that ROSE has a high potential for use in the oil industry.
Keywords: Calcium sulphate scale, calcium carbonate scale, barium sulphate scale, red onion skin, green scale inhibitor, scale inhibition.