Silica Scaling Inhibition in Water Treatment Process Using Fibrous Al2O3-Nylon 6 Adsorbents

Abstract

This study describes a novel approach using fibrous Al2O3-Nylon 6 composites to induce inhibition behavior in silica scaling systems. The composite fibers were fabricated with a wet-spinning process using the coagulation of a methanolic Nylon-CaCl2 solution with Al2O3 powder after immersing the thread-like solution in water. The mesoporous nylon fibers composed of Al2O3 powders ranging from 10 to 30 wt% loading demonstrated superior adsorption capabilities to silica in water, behaving with the Freundlich model and exhibiting effective multilayer adsorption onto the Al2O3 sites embedded in the fiber. Furthermore, the composite fibers inhibited silica scaling, even at high concentrations, due to a substantially efficient reduction in soluble silica when the composite fiber was present in the system. The utilization of 15 g of composite fibers resulted in a rapid drop to approximately 30 mg/L within the initial 10 h, which is a considerable improvement compared to the 300 mg/L observed in the fiber-free control sample. Notably, the presence of an elevated fiber content exceeding 7.5 g demonstrated the complete inhibition of silica precipitation. An analysis of the pore volume using nitrogen adsorption experiments before and after silica adsorption showed that silica adsorption resulted in a significant decrease in mesoporous properties at the alumina sites. This indicated an efficient adsorption of silica onto the alumina site, effectively removing silica from the system.

Impact of ZrO2 Content on the Formation of Sr-Enriched Phosphates in Al2O3/ZrO2 Nanocomposites for Bone Tissue Engineering

“…Several processing techniques are employed to obtain nanostructured alumina oxidebased nanocomposites, including traditional methods such as sol-gel, chemical vapor deposition, precipitation, and mixing oxides using ball milling, among others. Currently, advancements in the field of nanotechnology involve various processing technologies, such Materials 2024, 17, 1893 2 of 14 as the fabrication of functional materials using galvanostatic anodic oxidation, atomic layer deposition, electrospinning, and plasma processing, among others [4][5][6][7]. Al 2 O 3 /ZrO 2 nanocomposites, for example, have a high mechanical and wear resistance when compared to other ceramic biomaterials [8][9][10].…”