Determining the operational window of green antiscalants: A case study for calcium sulfate
Metadatos
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Elsevier
Materia
Antiscaling Chelating agents Threshold inhibitors Nucleation induction times Calcium sulfate Polycarboxylates
Fecha
2022-10-07Referencia bibliográfica
P. Ramírez-García... [et al.]. Determining the operational window of green antiscalants: A case study for calcium sulfate, Desalination, Volume 544, 2022, 116128, ISSN 0011-9164, [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2022.116128]
Patrocinador
BI-OTIC campus de excelencia (UGR) 30.BA.94.0801Resumen
The detrimental effects of inorganic scaling in industrial and domestic applications are often mitigated with scale
inhibitors. Increasing environmental awareness and stringent regulations require developing more sustainable
antiscalants. Testing of suitable candidates is often the rate-limiting step in development cycles, therefore we
developed a high-throughput methodology to rapidly evaluate the antiscaling potential of new additives under
different application conditions. Using this method we determined the performance of two potential green additives
– a chelating agent and a threshold inhibitor – in delaying CaSO4 precipitation over a wide range of
supersaturations, temperatures and salinities. The threshold inhibitor strongly delayed CaSO4 scaling, but its
performance is highly dependent on the physicochemical conditions, with the appropriate application window
comprising low salinities and mild temperatures. In contrast, the chelating agent showed a lower inhibiting
capacity, but its performance remained relatively constant throughout the entire matrix of physicochemical
conditions. Noteworthy, we also observed that at intermediate salinities the absolute induction time for CaSO4
precipitation is dramatically prolonged, offering a sustainable strategy to mitigate scaling. Overall, our method
allows simultaneously benchmarking the scaling kinetics and testing the scale-inhibiting performance of additives,
providing a direct route to a more rational design of antiscaling technologies.