Synthesis and applications of fluorescent-tagged scale inhibitors in water treatment. A review

• M. Oshchepkov^1,2, S. Tkachenko^1,2 and K. Popov¹

¹ JSC “Fine Chemicals R&D Centre”, Krasnobogatyrskaya 42, str. 1, 107258 Moscow, Russian Federation
² Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Miusskaya sq. 9, 125047 Moscow, Russian Federation

Abstract: Fluorescent-tagged scale inhibitor application is a new trend in water treatment. An increasing interest to the fluorescent antiscalants is associated with a need of a better scale inhibitor concentration control in industrial applications: the concentration of antiscalants in the circulating system is usually changed by evaporation of water, reagent sorption on the pipe surfaces and on scale particles, as well as by a periodical discharge of the circulating water with some deposit. This paper considers synthesis, properties and industrial applications of antiscalants bearing a fluorescent fragment. A special focus is done on the covalent implementation of the fluorescent fragment into the polymer matrix, performed in two different ways: (a) the first one includes attachment along with the polymer formation process; (b) the second one is based on the fluorophore binding to the ready-made polymer matrix. An attachment of a fluorescent fragment to the bisphosphonate is also described. Besides the issues of antiscalant concentration monitoring in industrial facilities, the unique opportunity of the scale inhibition theory development via the direct visualization of fluorescent-tagged scale inhibitors in various scale formation processes is demonstrated. A recent progress in scale inhibition mechanism understanding due to an antiscalant visualization in situ is highlighted.

Keywords: visualization, fluorescent-tagged bisphosphonate, gypsum, scale formation, mechanisms of scale inhibition, crystal formation

Int. J. Corros. Scale Inhib., 2019, 8, no. 3, 480-511 PDF (1 555 K)
doi: 10.17675/2305-6894-2019-8-3-2

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