State of art of natural inhibitors of calcium carbonate scaling. A review article

International audienceThe formation of calcium carbonate in water has some important implications in geoscience researches, oceanchemistry studies, CO2 emission issues and biology. In industry, the scaling phenomenon may cause technicalproblems such as reduction of heat transfer efficiency in cooling systems and obstruction of pipes.The use of chemicalswhich act as antiscalant is a common approach in the control of scale deposition. However,inorganic nitrogen and phosphorous compounds are involved in eutrophication process. Therefore, it is of primeimportance to find alternative solutions, i.e. green inhibitors of scale formation. This last decade, several newscaleinhibitors, that are more ecological compared with conventional inhibitors, have been reported in the literature.Plant extracts have been also recently used as newgreen antiscalants. Indeed, as they can be easily extracted andare environmentally friendly, they represent an interesting alternative source of "natural" organic molecules.In this review, a focus of some green antiscalants derived frompetrochemicals has been reported. Then the effortsdone those last years to obtain green inhibitors, either by using “natural” organic molecules or extracted fromplants were summarized. Such green inhibitors might be used in various technical areas, i.e. energy, water,food and beverages industries