Review of Oilfield Scale Inhibitors

One of the mechanism that applied to reservoir for better recovery is water flooding. During water flooding scaling problem can be appeared. Scaling is precipitation of sparingly soluble salts at surfaces. When parameters as temperature, pressure, concentration, or pH are changed, the equilibrium of the system is shifted. This can push the system into a state where the dissolved ions precipitate out, causing a deposition of scale. Scale can be removed chemically or mechanically after deposition. In addition, scale formation can be prevented before the deposition occurs. The cost of scales removal can be extremely costly. Therefore, it is sensible to prevent the formation of scales. For this reason, scale inhibitor should be used. Scale inhibitors are the type of water-soluble chemicals that stops or interferes to nucleation and/or crystal growth of inorganic scales. In this study, the different types of scale inhibitors were widely investigated. Also factors affecting scale inhibitors performance were presented.