Grant: Engage Grants Program

The chemical composition of oilfield water can provide an indication of the tendency of the water to produce scale or cause corrosion in oilfield equipment. Anions such as chloride, bromide, carbonate, sulfate, etc., are of interest since they play a significant role in corrosion. Accurate chemical analysis of the anions present would enable appropriate treatment of oilfield water to prevent scale or corrosion, thereby minimizing downtime, increasing production and thus saving money. This research will provide a rapid, sensitive and efficient analytical method that oilfield and commercial laboratories can use to determine anions in their samples. Knowledge of the various species of anions will provide improved results to the analytical customer. In the case of routine oilfield water analysis, this research will offer separate, direct determination of chloride, bromide and iodide that would remove the systematic error seen in the currently used determination of chloride by silver titration. In addition, the direct determination of bicarbonate, carbonate, hydroxide and organic acids will be possible in this research and thus not rely on interference-prone acid-base titrations. Many other benefits will accrue from the success of this project. The cost and efficiency of competent anion analysis is greatly reduced, as the necessary suite of analytical equipment is reduced to just one instrument. Commensurate reductions in post-analysis correlations of data from different instruments inevitably improve efficiency and throughput, while avoiding the potential for chain of custody errors. Together with the improved accuracy, enhanced analysis of anions and the potential for field-based applications, success in this program will have a significant technical and economic impact for the oilfield industry.