Journal
CRYSTALS
Volume 10, Issue 4, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/cryst10040309
Keywords
reverse osmosis; membrane fouling; gypsum scaling; fluorescent-tagged polyacrylate; fluorescence; scale inhibition mechanisms
Funding
- Russian Science Foundation [19-79-10220]
- Russian Science Foundation [19-79-10220] Funding Source: Russian Science Foundation
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Gypsum scaling in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process is studied in presence of a novel fluorescent 1,8-naphthalimide-tagged polyacrylate (PAA-F1) by fluorescent microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and a particle counter technique. A comparison of PAA-F1 with a previously reported fluorescent bisphosphonate HEDP-F revealed a better PAA-F1 efficacy, and a similar behavior of polyacrylate and bisphosphonate inhibitors under the same RO experimental conditions. Despite expectations, PAA-F1 does not interact with gypsum. For both reagents, it is found that scaling takes place in the bulk retentate phase via heterogeneous nucleation step. The background nanodust plays a key role as a gypsum nucleation center. Contrary to popular belief, an antiscalant interacts with nanodust particles, isolating them from calcium and sulfate ions sorption. Therefore, the number of gypsum nucleation centers is reduced, and in turn, the overall scaling rate is diminished. It is also shown that, the scale formation scenario changes from the bulk medium, in the beginning, to the sediment crystals growth on the membrane surface, at the end of the desalination process. It is demonstrated that the fluorescent-tagged antiscalants may become very powerful tools in membrane scaling inhibition studies.
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