(590d) Fundamentals of Calcium Carbonate Scale Formation in Oil-Water Emulsions

As a typical process in the extraction and recovery of crude oil, water is injected deep into oil reservoirs in the so-called water flooding process to facilitate the oil displacement through the wellbore, typically generating water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions. Due to economical considerations, sea water is used in the flooding process; however, the ionic incompatibility between the injected water and the formation water inside the reservoir may cause scale formation due to severe fluctuations in ion concentrations and supersaturation. Despite the extensive investigations on calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) precipitation in aqueous media, CaCO₃ scale formation in multiphase systems is not fully understood. Here, we engineer microfluidic-enabled stable W/O emulsions via multifactorial optimizations to uncover the influence of emulsion properties, such as surfactant concentration, on the CaCO₃ scaling kinetics. This fundamental study may open new opportunities for designing scale-resistant multiphase flows.