Experimental analysis demonstrates narrowed metastable-zone widths at higher temperatures and slower cooling for potassium fluorosilicate in acid solutions, suggesting strategies to prevent scaling.
The solubility and metastable-zone width (MZW) of K2SiF6 in pure water and acid solutions (HCl and H3PO4) were determined respectively by the isothermal method and multitemperature conductivity method combined with visual inspection. The effects of saturation temperature (30–70 °C) and the cooling rate (6–24 °C/h) on MZW was investigated. Moreover, the nucleation equation was fitted using the Nývlt equation in classical nucleation theory, and the apparent nucleation order m was calculated. The results showed that the MZW of K2SiF6 narrowed with increasing saturation temperature and decreasing cooling rate in all investigated systems. The apparent nucleation order m of K2SiF6 in each system increased slightly with increasing temperature. Especially, the m value in H3PO4 solution was slightly larger than that in pure water under the same conditions. This study can provide key data and theoretical support for optimizing the crystallization of K2SiF6 in acid-leaching solution from phosphorus–potassium-associated ore and preventing scale formation of K2SiF6 in wet-process phosphoric acid (WPA) vacuum filtration.
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Yu et al. (2026) studied this question.
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