Scaling problems and control technologies in industrial operations: Technology assessment

This paper discusses the problems of calcium and magnesium scale affecting various industrial operations when seawater is used. It presents current technologies for scale control such as pH control, scale inhibitors, and nanofiltration. Moreover, the technology assessment (TA) was made to evaluate existing and emerging scale control approaches in the case of reverse osmosis (RO) process. The identification of the emerging technologies of scale control has been performed using bibliometric analysis. The comparison of the technologies was made using House of Quality (HOQ) matrix. The identified emerging technologies are: bioelectrochemical system, biomineralization, biosorbent, microbial desalination cells, step by step deposition and extraction technique, carbon dioxide as a precipitator, gas hydrate, ultrasonic crystallization, and capacitive deionization. The comparison of the technologies has shown that nanofiltration, as a common technology, could be an appropriate approach to ensure feasibility and efficiency of RO process, while emerging technology, microbial desalination cells, could become a potential alternative in the future.