Water Soluble Polymers
Polymers consist of large molecules which consist of long chains of building blocks known as monomers linked together in chemical bond.
Whenever we think of polymers, we equate polymers with plastics. Plastics are not generally soluble in water. But, all polymers are not plastic. Some polymers have been developed which get dissolved in water.
Water soluble polymers finds application in number of areas like cosmetic, detergent, oral care , industrial water treatment , geothermal, wastewater treatment, water purification and reuse, pulp and paper production, sugar refining and many more other fields.
These water soluble polymers also play very important role in oil industry especially for increasing oil recovery from wells. These water soluble polymers have been also used in agriculture and also for controlled release pharmaceutical applications. Therefore, for industrial scientists who are involved in any of these fields, a fundamental knowledge regarding solution properties of these water soluble polymers is necessary. They should have a basic understanding about different basic phenomena involved in the application of these polymers in different fields involved such as its action of adsorption and interaction with different substrates like tooth enamel, hair, reverse osmosis membrane, heat exchanger surface etc. This has vital importance for development of high performance formulations so that optimum efficiency of the system could be achieved.
In many industrial processes a very serious problem is encountered regarding the buildup of undesirable deposits on the walls on water handling equipment. These deposits, especially those settled on heat transfer surfaces in cooling, boiler, geothermal and distillation systems. These undesirable deposits lead to overheating, loss of system efficiency, unscheduled shutdown and even ultimately leading to heat exchanger failure. These deposits could be broadly classified into following four groups:
· Mineral scales like Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Sulphide, Calcium Fluoride, Calcium Phosphate etc.
· Suspended solids like mud or silt
· Corrosion Products like Iron Oxide, Zinc Oxide etc
· Microbiological mass
In reverse osmosis system, deposition of these unwanted materials could lead to poor water quality and ultimately cause premature membrane failure. This problem of formation of unwanted deposits on the surfaces of heat exchanges and membrane surface will turn out to be a limiting factor for the efficient operation of these systems. Therefore, it is becoming clear that the effective operation of industrial water treatment systems will be depending to a very large extent on proper control of these deposits in these systems.
For the past few years, these water soluble polymers are being used successfully by water treatment industry for such functions like scale inhibition, metal ion stabilization, crystal modification. In cosmetic and hair care application, chemists depend on the use of these water soluble polymers to develop aesthetically pleasing, functional, pleasing and stable product. These polymers also help in controlled release of active ingredients from the formulated product. In detergents, these polymers are used as builders.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Polymers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.