(517d) Scale Inhibition Performance of Newly Synthesized Biodegradable Polymers Vs Commercially Available Phosphonate Inhibitors

Inorganic scale formation is a persistent problem across various industries and processes that involves high salinity water. Scale Inhibitors are widely used to prevent scale formation, whereby most of the currently available inhibitors are phosphonate polymers that are facing increasing environmental restrictions. This work explores replacing phosphonate inhibitors by “green” formulations. Five inhibitors, three commercial and two synthesized in-house were tested. The in-house inhibitors comprised chitosan and carboxymethylcellulose as the backbone, and poly (acrylic acid) as the graft. The commercial and the new inhibitors were tested according to the static bottle test. Several observations were highlighted from the study findings. First, the inhibition efficiency appeared to increase with increasing dosage and pH after 16 hours of reaction time. Second, in contrast to newly synthesized polymers, the inhibition started at very low dosages of inhibitor in the case of commercial inhibitors. Finally, the commercial scale inhibitors appeared to reach a plateau of about 68% efficiency at brine solutions salt concentrations beyond 85,000 ppm.