Scale Prevention By Ceramic Balls

TL;DR

This paper investigates the anti-scale effects of ceramic balls in water systems by developing and analyzing multiple mathematical models to understand their mechanisms in preventing calcite scale formation.

Contribution

It introduces several new mathematical models to clarify how ceramic balls prevent scale formation, combining microscopic and macroscopic analyses.

Findings

Electric potential near ceramic surfaces influences calcite nucleation

Surface tension energy of calcite is reduced by polarization effects

Ceramic ball arrangements affect calcite particle behavior in flow

Abstract

In industrial facilities and household equipments scale formation leads to reduced efficiency and damages. Therefore various devices for anti-scale have been designed for a long time. Recently one of them, an aggregation of ceramic spheres, was proposed to prevent scale formation and its efficiency shown experimentally. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the function of this device by proposing several mathematical models and by pursuing their mathematical and numerical analysis. The first model measures the effect on nucleation of calcite of the electric potential near the surface of a ceramic sphere in natural water. The second model is based on a crystal lattice model and argues that the surface tension energy of the calcite particles is reduced by the polarization energy brought by the ceramic balls. The third model is macroscopic and numerical and studies the effect of two ceramic balls arrangements in a flow of water containing calcite particles.