Corrosion and flow assurance
Highlights and collaborations

Our research philosophy revolves around 5 key areas:
- Fundamental research to generate industrial impact – our research is industry driven. Despite focusing on fundamental aspects in some instances, the focus is always on generating impact with our collaborators/partners.
- Custom designs and in situ techniques – we pride ourselves on developing novel methodologies/apparatus/techniques to understand mechanisms more clearly. There is a particular emphasis on in situ electrochemical/optical/synchrotron/acoustic methods.
- Experimental – our research is largely experimental in nature, focusing on modelling or simulating oilfield processes/environments to understand material-electrolyte interactions.
- Understanding processes at the material-electrolyte interface – identifying the characteristics of material surfaces after degradation using state of the art analysis techniques.
- Numerical – experimental observations are complemented with numerical models/tools to help further understand mechanisms. Corrosion prediction models developed are also validated by experimental data.
Current research
- Localised corrosion in H2S containing environments
- Combined numerical and experimental approaches to predict corrosion product formation kinetics in CO2 environments
- In situ measurements of scale formation (XRD and optical)
- Matrix acidizing
- High temperature/High pressure corrosion
- Top of line corrosion – modelling and experimental approaches
- Erosion-corrosion in CO2 environments
- Pit initiation and propagation in CO2 environments
- Under-deposit corrosion
- Understanding the precursors to localised corrosion in CO2 environments.
- Understanding the kinetics of organic and inorganic surface fouling
- Development of in-situ techniques for the study of real time scaling processes
- Understanding scale formation in multiphase flow conditions
- Heat exchanger fouling for industrial and domestic applications
- Surface coatings for mitigation of fouling
- Developing bespoke surface solutions for scaling relying on liquid-infused surfaces
- Assessing scale dissolution processes and rates.
- The work in flow assurance is principally funded by industry; we have a number of one-to-one and joint industry projects.
- Research highlights
- Establishing the relationship between bulk and surface scaling kinetics
- Development and assessment of new coatings for subsea safety control valves to control mineral fouling
- Development of a nanotechnology-assisted squeeze treatment
- In-situ visualisation for real-time assessment of scale kinetics
- In-situ synchrotron XRD for the assessment of scale formation and inhibition.
Current and past collaborations
- BG Group (now formally part of Shell)
- Shell Global Solutions/Shell UK Limited
- Baker Hughes
- UFRJ
- Schlumberger
- Wood Group
- BP
- Statoil
- Outokumpu
- LBBC Technologies
- Total
- ConocoPhillips
- Chevron
- Croda
- ADNOC