Could petroleum work as lubricant oil on slippery lubricated surfaces to prevent inorganic scaling?

Abstract

The use of nucleation and growth inhibitors at offshore oil industry to avoid inorganic scaling could be replaced by both physical and chemical modifications at surfaces to prevent the scaling. In that way, the slippery lubricated surfaces have been showing promising results as scaling preventers, notably when the lubricants are perfluorinated oils, which are immiscible with almost every kind of compound. Nonetheless, the requirement of periodically refilling these lubricant oils is disadvantageous, especially when dealing with deep sea facilities. Using petroleum as the lubricant oil could skip the refilling step, since it is always present in the extraction medium. So, this work tests the effectiveness of petroleum as the lubricant oil in functionalized textured polyaniline applied as anti-scaling material in conditions that simulate the medium of offshore operation. As result, petroleum as lubricant oil presents effective anti-scaling capacity and works perfectly in slippery lubricated surfaces.

Recent Progress of Bioinspired Scalephobic Surfaces with Specific Barrier Layers

“…On the other hand, many studies had successfully deposited polypyrrole (PPy), , polyaniline, , and a metal–organic framework (MOF) on the substrates which can impregnate lubricant to achieve various functions. In 2014, Aizenberg et al modified the structure of gold-coated surfaces to be applicable for the deposition of a nanostructured PPy overcoating on aluminum .…”

“…Other similar work has also been reported in recent years. Various oil liquids, such as the petroleum and perfluorosilicone oil, , were infused into rough surfaces which showed good antiscaling properties. The impregnated oil layer had the ability to prevent the aqueous solution from being in direct contact with the solid surface.…”

Mecanismos de incrustação e sua mitigação por meio de superfícies anti-incrustantes bioinspiradas

“…Esses resultados, entretanto, foram obtidos em sua maioria em condições estáticas, [33,55] enquanto experimentos sob fluxo foram pouco explorados até então. [8] Trabalhos na literatura mostram que a camada de óleo usada em tais materiais é removida com o tempo pelo fluxo do líquido externo. [57,59,61,62,107,108] Pensando na viabilidade de tais superfícies como materiais anti-incrustantes, é necessário estudar os fatores que afetam a retenção do lubrificante.…”

“…Esse é um problema comum encontrado em caldeiras, sistemas de irrigações, tubulações, e instalações marítimas, por exemplo. [4][5][6][7][8] No caso da adesão de substâncias em suspensão é fácil compreender que a incrustação ocorre pela migração das espécies do meio para as superfícies.…”