Objective
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 better
understand 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 novel
findings 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.
Fields of science
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryinorganic compounds
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energynatural gas
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsarithmeticsprime numbers
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energygeothermal energy
Call for proposal
FP7-PEOPLE-2011-ITN
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
MC-ITN - Networks for Initial Training (ITN)Coordinator
LS2 9JT Leeds
United Kingdom