Enhancing anti-scaling resistances of aromatic polyamide reverse osmosis membranes using a new natural materials inhibitor

Calcium sulfate precipitation studies with scale inhibitors for reverse osmosis desalination

Background/Objectives: Obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by the excessive expansion of adipose tissue and impaired energy homeostasis. Natural products, such as plant extracts, are gaining attention as potential anti-obesity agents. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the anti-obesity effects of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) extract alone and as a mixture with long pepper (Piper longum L.) extract in a mouse model of high-fat diet-induced obesity. Methods: Male ICR mice were fed a high-fat diet to induce obesity and were orally administered ginger extract (60 mg/kg/day) or a 1:1 mixture of ginger and long pepper extracts (30 mg/kg/day each) for 8 weeks. Body weight, fat mass, glucose tolerance, and serum lipid levels were measured. Results: Ginger extract alone significantly reduced body weight gain and visceral and subcutaneous fat accumulation and improved glucose homeostasis and serum lipid profiles compared to the high-fat diet group. These effects were more pronounced than those observed with the mixture group. Ginger extract upregulated lipolytic markers via activation of the protein kinase A (PKA) signaling pathway and increased expression of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), indicating browning of white adipose tissue. Conclusions: Ginger extract alone exhibited significant anti-obesity effects compared to the mixture with long pepper extract. These findings suggest that ginger extract may serve as a promising natural agent for the prevention and management of obesity-related metabolic dysfunction.

Today, reverse osmosis membranes are the leading technology for new desalination installations, however, a challenge facing widespread application of RO technology is membrane fouling. In the present study, we used an environmentally friendly green inhibitor as anti-scaling and anti-biofouling in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants. The influence of Sargassum sp., Corallina mediterranea, and Avicennia marina on RO membrane mineral scaling was evaluated using gypsum as a model scalant. Antibacterial properties for three marine extracts from Sargassum sp., C. mediterranea, and Avicennia marina were investigated with Gram-positive bacteria (ArthrobactersulfureusYACS14, Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative bacteria (VibrioanguillarumMVM425, Escherichia coli). The antimicrobial results were detected for the two selected extracts as the most potent extracts (ethyl acetate, methanol crude extracts of the Avicennia marina leaves). Data showed that ratios of 3 and 5% recorded the highest suppression percentages (100%) for all tested bacteria including bacterial community collected from Eastern Harbor. On the other side, data confirmed that the anti-scalant properties by 100 ppm of Avicennia marina leave extract giving 85% of scale inhibition. The effect of Avicennia marina leaves extract for calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum) scaling on selected reverse osmosis (RO) membrane surfaces was investigated. The effect of different concentrations of Avicennia marina leaves extract was observed in the extent of surface scale coverage and surface crystal size among the membrane studied.

Summary Calcium sulfate is one of the major mineral scales in oil and gas production. Hemihydrate (CaSO4·0.5H2O) and anhydrite (CaSO4) are the predominant sulfate scales formed at high temperature, while gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) scale may form at low temperatures (<~45°C). However, it has been shown in this study that anhydrite can form at low temperature in the presence of excess amounts of monoethylene glycol (MEG), and this may occur during offshore production with long tie-backs. The prediction and prevention of calcium sulfate scales requires knowledge of the phase behavior of the three major phases of calcium sulfate. The phase behavior of different calcium sulfate phases is related to the supersaturation state, temperature, and fugacity of water. In this study, the effect of a common hydrate inhibitor, MEG, on calcium sulfate solubility and phase behavior was investigated. This study was run with NaCl/CaSO4/MEG/H2O solutions at 0–6 molality (M) NaCl and 0–95 wt% MEG at 4–70°C. Three approaches were taken to determine the kinetics of calcium sulfate phase transition at various temperatures, ionic strengths, and MEG concentrations: (1) dissolution of gypsum, (2) dissolution of anhydrite, and (3) nucleation and precipitation of calcium sulfate by mixing calcium- and sulfate-containing solutions. The effect of scale inhibitors on phase transition was also evaluated. Phase transition of gypsum to anhydrite was observed in the presence of high concentrations of NaCl and MEG, regardless of the experimental approach. The transition boundary of temperature and concentrations of NaCl and MEG can be estimated from solubility of calcium sulfate and the fugacity of water. The inhibition mechanism of hexamethylene diamine tetra (methylene phosphonic acid) (HDTMP), one of the most effective inhibitors for calcium sulfate scale, was also tested by investigating the kinetics of precipitation and inhibition of calcium sulfate.

Previous results have reported the precipitation of calcium sulfate during matrix acid treatments when seawater was used to prepare HCl-based acid.Precipitations of calcium sulfate causes severe damage on the permeability of carbonate reservoirs and negatively impacts the performance of acid treatments.Typically, scale inhibitors are applied in the field to prevent the formation of calcium sulfate scale, and the object of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of scale inhibitors to inhibit the formation of calcium sulfate scale during the acid stimulation process.Scale inhibition efficiency was determined in batch tests under different temperatures (77 to 210°F) and different degrees of spent acid conditions.Sulfate ions were analyzed in the samples of the batch tests to detect the precipitations of calcium sulfate.Results showed that application of scale inhibitors can successfully mitigate calcium sulfate scale formation up to 210°F.At higher temperatures, the rate of calcium sulfate precipitation increased and the effectiveness of all types of scale inhibitors decreased greatly.Most of the scale inhibitors were not effective in acidic conditions and some of the scale inhibitors even precipitated out of the solution in the presence of high concentration of calcium ions.Methylene phoshponic acid scale inhibitor was the most effective one under various experimental conditions.The findings in this study provided information for better calcium sulfate scale control under acid stimulation conditions.

Effect of ginger extract on expression of GATA3, T-bet and ROR-γt in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with Allergic Asthma

Increasing inhibition performance of simultaneous precipitation of calcium and strontium sulfate scales using a new inhibitor — Laboratory and field application

Performance of an environmentally friendly anti-scalant in CaSO4 scale inhibition

Summary The deposition of inorganic salts in the bottomhole formation zone and on the surface of the oilfield equipment causes a reduction in the well production rate, service life and the rock permeability. The precipitation of calcium sulfate often occurs when mixing incompatible waters during waterflooding of reservoirs. In this work, conditions for the precipitation of calcium sulfate were determined depending on the reservoir conditions and the volume ratio of the injection and formation waters. The effects of reservoir temperature and pressure on the formation of calcium sulfate scale were studied. The results of scale prediction showed that with increasing temperature and decreasing pressure, the amount of forming calcium sulfate is significantly increased. To analyze the inhibition efficiency of calcium sulfate under static conditions, five different scale inhibitors were used. Results of studies on the evaluation of the efficiency of the developed scale inhibitor and industrial scale inhibitors under static and dynamic conditions were presented. The developed scale inhibitor has the highest efficiency for preventing the calcium sulfate scale formation at a concentration of 30 mg/L. Despite the decrease in solubility of calcium sulfate with increasing temperature, the effectiveness of the developed inhibitor does not significantly decrease with increasing temperature.

Calcium sulfate scale is a typical deposit on the equipment pieces or pipes of an industrial water system. Scale inhibitors could obviously reduce the precipitation of calcium sulfate crystal. The development and research of late-model environmentally friendly polymer inhibitors are often urgent problems to be addressed. A water-soluble poly(ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid-diethanolamine) (PEDTA-DEA) was successfully synthesized by thermal polycondensation of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) with diethanolamine (DEA). The polymer product was characterized by Fourier infrared spectrum (FTIR) and the molecular weight was measured by gel chromatography, which confirms the polymerization of the two monomers. The inhibition effect of the polymer against calcium sulfate deposition was studied by static scale inhibition tests. When the Ca2+ concentration is 3000 mg/L, and the dosage of the polymer inhibitor is 10 mg/L, the inhibition effect exceeds 90%. The results show that PEDTA-DEA can inhibit the precipitation of calcium sulfate and reduce the deposition of calcium sulfate scale. The precipitate of calcium sulfate collected from the static scale inhibition test solution was analyzed by FTIR, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results revealed that the addition of the polymer significantly changes the calcium sulfate crystal’s growth shape. Therefore, PEDTA-DEA is a potential calcium sulfate precipitation inhibitor for the industrial water system.

In this study, the nucleation kinetics of calcium sulfate scale formation in the presence and absence of scale inhibitors has been studied. The nucleation kinetics of calcium sulfates in 0 – 3.2 M NaCl solution was measured from 0 – 200 °C at various supersaturation conditions (SI = 0-1.3). The phase behavior of these various calcium sulfate phases were monitored by X ray diffraction. The inhibition study was done by evaluating the inhibition efficiency of calcium sulfate precipitation at the same supersaturation and temperature ranges as the nucleation study. Several polyphosphonate, polymeric and green inhibitors were found to be effective inhibitors. The study has shown that calcium sulfate scales are very difficult to inhibit at SI > 1. Calcium sulfate scale is most effectively inhibited by HDTMP (hexamethylenediamine tetra(methylene phosphonic acid)) if the saturation index is below ~1.0. In addition, a semi-quantitative model to predict precipitation kinetics of calcium sulfate as a function of temperature, pH, saturation index and HDTMP concentration was established with experimental results from this study. The effect of methanol and methylene glycol on calcium sulfate precipitation kinetics and inhibition is also presented.

Water flooding using seawater is a major oil filed operation implemented in different carbonate and sandstone reservoirs to maintain reservoir pressure and enhance oil recovery. However, due to the high sulfate content in the injected seawater, significant calcium, barium and strontium sulfate scale deposition can occur and cause severe formation damage. Typically, scale inhibitors are applied in the field to prevent the formation of calcium sulfate scale where they act either as chelating agents to form a soluble complex, as threshold inhibitors, which block the development of the supercritical nuclei or as retarders of the growth of the calcium sulfate crystals. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of scale inhibitors to prevent the formation of calcium sulfate scale during the injection of seawater into high-salinity bearing carbonate reservoirs.Jar testing and SoftPitzerTM software were used to investigate the calcium sulfate precipitation due to the mixing of high calcium-content (37,000 mg/L) formation water and high sulfate-content (4,000 mg/L) seawater. This investigation was conducted on different mixtures of formation water and seawater at reservoir temperature of 155°F. Different types of scale inhibitors were tested to prevent the scaling of calcium sulfate in mixtures of seawater and formation water. The compatibility of these scale inhibitors with calcium ions present in formation water and also their effectiveness in preventing CaSO4 scaling were investigated using bottle testing. In addition, coreflood experiments were conducted to determine the adsorption behavior of these inhibitors in carbonate rocks.Results showed that the application of two scale inhibitors (Acrylic homopolymer-based) can successfully mitigate calcium sulfate scale formation in seawater/formation water mixtures up to 155°F. Each one of these two scale inhibitors has its own effective minimum inhibition concentration (MIC). In addition to these results, the paper provides insights into the adsorption behavior of these inhibitors in carbonate rocks and how this affects their performance.

Petroleum engineering could engage numerous challenges caused by sulfate mineral precipitation and deposition. This severe critical issue which could directly lead to production reduction, was investigated in this study. Accordingly, the precipitation, deposition, and inhibition of calcium and barium sulfate were scrutinized from the simulation and experimental perspectives. The simulation tools, PHREEQC and Aspen Plus, were first used to corroborate the results of the high-temperature (90 °C) standard static experimental tests conducted for calcium and barium sulfate precipitation and deposition phenomena. In the experimental phase of the inhibition study, folic acid was evaluated as a green scale inhibitor (SI) and compared to a phosphonate-based commercial SI regarding inhibition efficiency (IE%) and inhibition mechanisms. The findings indicated that folic acid reduced calcium and barium sulfate precipitation as much as 50.8% and 44.8% respectively at the specific critical mixing ratios through the crystal modification inhibition mechanism provided by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Moreover, folic acid could perform effectively in the mitigation of calcium and barium deposition by 53.7% and 47.2% in the presence of 5 g of dolomite rock. However, a comparison of a commercial SI and folic acid showed that the commercial SI was weaker than folic acid for mitigation of sulfate deposition through the threshold inhibition mechanism.

Polyaspartic acid (PSI) is suitable for the inhibition of inorganic scale deposition. To enhance its scale inhibition efficiency, PSI was modified by reacting aspartic acid with malic acid (MA) using thermal polycondensation polymerization. This reaction resulted in poly(aspartic acid-co-malic acid) (PSI-co-MA) dual polymer. The structural, chemical and thermal properties of the dual polymers were analysed by using scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry and gel permeation chromatography. The effectiveness of six different molar ratios of PSI-co-MA dual polymer for calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate scale inhibition at laboratory scale batch experiments was evaluated with synthetic brine solution at selected doses of polymer at 65–70°C by the static scale test method. The performance of PSI-co-MA dual polymer for the inhibition of calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate precipitation was compared with that of a PSI single polymer. The PSI-co-MA exhibited excellent ability to control inorganic minerals, with approximately 85.36% calcium carbonate inhibition and 100% calcium sulphate inhibition at a level of 10 mg/L PSI-co-MA, respectively. Therefore, it may be reasonably concluded that PSI-co-MA is a highly effective scale inhibitor for cooling water treatment applications.

Background: Cancer is a neoplastic disease that continues to be a global challenge, with a reported prevalence increasing annually. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is overexpressed in various epithelial tumors such as breast and colon cancer, and for this reason, it is used for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Because of the high mortality rate associated with cancer and the side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, patients need replaced strategies for therapy. Ginger has biological effects, including antioxidant and anticancer activities. Objectives: This study aims to evaluate ginger extract's effect on the expression of EGFR in MDA-mb231 and HT-29 cell lines. Methods: Fresh ginger rhizomes were purchased from a local food market, washed, grated, and then ginger extract was prepared using ethanol. MDA-mb231 and HT-29 cell lines were treated with different concentrations of ginger (5, 10, and 20 µgr/mL) extract in RPMI-1640 plus 10 % FCS for 18 h. The gene expression of EGFR was measured by real-time PCR. Results: The level of EGFR expression in MDA-mb231 and HT-29 cell lines after treatment with different concentrations of ginger extract was not changed significantly (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The current data indicate that the ginger extract does not have a significant dose-dependent effect, in the concentration range of 5 to 20 µgr/mL, on the expression of EGFR in these cancer cell lines. It is suggested to repeat the experiments with higher concentrations of ginger and in a time-dependent manner.