A B S T R A C TThis work investigated the inhibitive effect of citric acid (CA), sodium citrate (SC), and their mixture (CA-SC) on the CaCO 3 scale. The study was carried out using chronoamperometry, impedancemetry, and fast-controlled precipitation methods. The electrochemical study showed that CA provides a slight inhibition of CaCO 3 deposit at a concentration of 70 ppm on stainless steel surface. The use of SC alone inhibits very little the formation of scale. The use of the mixture (50% of CA and 50% of SC) with small concentration led to significant inhibition of the CaCO 3 formation. The deposits formed were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD showed that the intensity of the preferential orientation (1 0 4) corresponding to crystallographic plans of calcite decreases and the SEM demonstrated a decrease in calcite crystal size from 10 to about 2 μm.
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