Graphene oxide-assisted-scale inhibitor in mitigating silicate scales formation.

The incompatibilities mixing of high pH alkaline flooding with the neutral pH connate water during alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding triggers the formation of silicate scales. Scale inhibitors (SI) are being injected downhole but even so, studies reported that silicate scales still could not be mitigated even at high doses of SIs and that one-third of the injected SI would return to the production line due to poor adsorption of SI onto rock formation. Since nanoparticles (NPs) have tuneable properties and morphologies, they are to be incorporated with the carboxylatesulphonate copolymer, TH5000 SI to improve the adsorption as well as prolong squeeze treatment lifetime with a much lower minimum inhibitor concentration (MIC). This study aims to investigate the adsorption of SI onto NP and rock formation along with the performance of the newly modified SI/NP in inhibiting silicate scale formation. There are four major parts of the experimental procedure involved which are; i) dispersion test, ii) static adsorption capacity test, iii) static inhibition efficiency (IE) test, and iv) sand pack test (dynamic inhibition efficiency (IE) test).