Corrosion and corrosion inhibitor qualification testing has been the subject of many publications over the years, with various guidelines and in-house protocols produced. This has led to a rather large set of test approaches for the qualification of corrosion inhibitors (CIs) for application in oil and gas production facilities.
For challenging conditions, including severe downhole conditions, final testing is often performed via specialized autoclaves or high-pressure flow loops to allow tests to be conducted under conditions as close to those pertaining in the field: T, P, pCO2 and pH2S (or more realistically, fugacity of CO2 and H2S), and as close as can be achieved to the field hydrodynamics.