Acrylic Acid-Allylpolyethoxy Carboxylate Copolymer: An Effective and Environmentally Friendly Inhibitor for Carbonate and Sulphate Scales in Cooling Water Systems

Abstract

Formation of mineral scales of carbonate and sulphate poses significant problems in cooling water systems. For the control of calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate scales, a novel environmentally friendly type of scale inhibitor ALn was synthesized. The antiscale property of the ALn copolymer towards CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ in the artificial cooling water was studied through static scale inhibition tests, The observation shows that both CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ inhibition increase with increasing the degree of polymerization of ALn from 5 to 15, and the dosage of ALn plays an important role on CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ inhibition. The effect on formation of CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ was investigated with combination of scanning electronic microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray powder diffraction analysis, respectively. Inhibition mechanism is proposed that the interactions between calcium and polyethylene glycol are the fundamental impetus to restrain the formation of the scale in cooling water systems.

Keywords:

• Copolymer
• Scale inhibitor
• Environmentally friendly
• Calcium carbonate
• Calcium sulphate
• Cooling water systems

Additional information

Funding

This projct was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51077013 and BK21401106), Nature Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No.BK20140090), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No.2014M560381), Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (No.1401033B), Transformation Program of Science and Technology Achievements of Jiangsu Province (No. BA2011086), the 333High-Level Talents Training Project of Jiangsu Province (No. BRA2010033), and the Project of Young Scientist Foundation of Nanjing Xiaozhuang University (No. 2013NXY89).