Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston , 4726 Calhoun Road, Houston, Texas 77204-4006, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Jun 21;9(24):21025-21033. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b05564. Epub 2017 Jun 6.
Scale formation is a common problem in a wide range of industries such as oil and gas, water desalination, and food processing. Conventional solutions for this problem including mechanical removal and chemical dissolution are inefficient, costly, and sometimes environmentally hazardous. Surface modification approaches have shown promises to address this challenge. However, these approaches suffer from intrinsic existence of solid-liquid interfaces leading to high rate of scale nucleation and high adhesion strength of the formed scale. Here, we report a new surface called magnetic slippery surface in two forms of Newtonian fluid (MAGSS) and gel structure (Gel-MAGSS). These surfaces provide a liquid-liquid interface to elevate the energy barrier for scale nucleation and minimize the adhesion strength of the formed scale on the surface. Performance of these new surfaces in both static and dynamic (under fluid flow) configurations is examined. These surfaces show superior antiscaling properties with an order of magnitude lower scale accretion compared to the solid surfaces and offer longevity and stability under high shear flow conditions. We envision that these surfaces open a new path to address the scale problem in the relevant technologies.
结垢是石油和天然气、海水淡化和食品加工等众多行业中普遍存在的问题。针对这个问题的传统解决方案包括机械去除和化学溶解，但效率低、成本高，有时还存在环境危害。表面改性方法在解决这一挑战方面显示出了前景。然而，这些方法受到固-液界面固有存在的限制，导致结垢核的快速生成和形成的结垢的高粘附强度。在这里，我们报告了一种新的表面，称为两种形式的牛顿流体中的磁性滑润表面（MAGSS）和凝胶结构（Gel-MAGSS）。这些表面提供了一个液体-液体界面，以提高结垢核生成的能量势垒，并最小化形成的结垢在表面上的粘附强度。在静态和动态（在流体流动下）两种配置下都对这些新表面的性能进行了检验。与固体表面相比，这些表面具有优越的防结垢性能，结垢的积累量低一个数量级，在高剪切流条件下具有长久和稳定的性能。我们设想这些表面为解决相关技术中的结垢问题开辟了一条新途径。
