Objective: The project objectives are to determine the feasibility of using a sulfate reducing microbial consortium from subsurface sediment for the dissolution of NORM containing pipe scale.
Accomplishments:
During this phase of the project, sediments and a mineral solution were incubated with Barite containing scale from an oilfield in Alberta. Additions were made including 20 mM FeCl2, 20 mM ethanol or a combination of the two. Over time, dissolved barium was monitored (Fig. 1). At the end of the experiment (150 days), solids were removed and suspended in 1 M HCl. Acid soluble barium was then measured to determine the barium component that had been dissolved but had reprecipitated as acid soluble material. As the majority of the scale is barite, which is not acid soluble, it makes sense that barium released due to treatment with acid was in the form of some other mineral.