Home

=Barium Sulphate Scaling= One of the biggest challenges faced by oil and gas field development and production industries is the formation of unwanted scale. Scaling is defined as the accumulation of unwanted materials on surfaces that often reduces the efficiency of equipment such as pipelines, turbines, and heat exchangers. In oilfield applications, the precipitation of barium sulphate (also known as barite) into the formation of scale is common and occurs on surfaces such as existing scale deposits, or metal surfaces that act as a site for adsorption of lattice ions. Barium sulphate scaling is mostly found in down-hole surface equipment since it is strongly adhering and contains large crystals. Although it has been researched thoroughly, barite formation still continues to be a problem in the industry.



Removing this barite scale mechanically, or chemically can be costly. An effective solution for removal is through the use of scale inhibitors that prevent the formation of scaling. Scale inhibitors may follow many different mechanisms, but are generally categorized into: **thermodynamic inhibition** and **kinetic inhibition**.