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Mineral Scale formation: from the atomic to the field scale (MINSC)
Start date: Jun 1, 2012, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The MINSC Initial Training Network (ITN) is comprised of partners from first-rate universities and high-level industrial partners located in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Norway, and Italy. The prime aims of this network is to provide research and training opportunities to a new generation of young fellows in fundamental and collaborative research projects related to the nucleation and growth of a series of relevant scale mineral systems in the absence or presence of inhibitors agents. The training will combine molecular level research with studies linked to clear industrial processes at the field-level. The ultimate goal is to betterunderstand one of the highly relevant problems in oil, geothermal and food industrial processes: pipe clogging and surface corrosion by mineral scale precipitates during production. To achieve this, the network will combine training of early stage and experienced researchers in state-of-the-art techniques of mineral formation and characterization both in laboratory and industrial settings with research objectives that aim at quantifying the nucleation and growth of several mineral systems: carbonates, sulphates/sulphides, oxalates and silicates. Scaling can often be retarded via inhibitors but their role in affecting rates of formation of these minerals in solution, on surfaces as well as in real-world industrial settings (i.e., pipes, cores etc.) are unknown. We will determine these rates in laboratory experiments and implement and test these novelfindings directly in industrial power plant systems. The prime industrially-driven science goal is twofold (a) to better understand what leads to the precipitation of a series of mineral scales causing a massive decrease in efficiency and increased cost for industrial processes (i.e., oil and gas production, geothermal energy, beer) and (b) to develop processes/inhibitors that can help mitigate and / or prevent scale formation in such environments.
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