Chain architectures of various cellulose-based antiscalants on the inhibition of calcium carbonate scale

Two series of cellulose-based antiscalants with different chain architectures, i.e., linear carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and branch-shaped carboxymethyl cellulose- graft -poly(acrylic acid) (CMC- g -PAA), were synthesized. The carboxyl groups were distributed on CMC backbone but mainly on the grafted chains of CMC- g -PAA. The addition of CMC and CMC- g -PAA can both increase the surface energy of CaCO 3 scale and decrease its crystal nucleation rate, thereby inhibiting CaCO 3 scale formation. The structural effects of these cellulose-based antiscalants, especially the chain architectures, on the scale inhibition were investigated in detail. High degree of carboxymethyl substitution caused better inhibition effect of linear CMC. However, CMC- g -PAA with an appropriate content of carboxyl groups but high average number of PAA grafted chains can achieve high inhibition performance. Besides, with similar contents of carboxyl groups, CMC- g -PAA showed much better inhibition performance than CMC due to the distinct multi-dimensional spatial structure of graft copolymer in solution, causing the enhanced chelation and dispersion effects. Characterization of CaCO 3 crystal by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction confirmed that crystal distortion effect obviously existed in CMC but quite minor in CMC- g -PAA. The differences between the scale-inhibition performance of CMC and CMC- g -PAA should be attributed to the different scale-inhibition mechanisms originated in their distinct chain architectures.