(182f) Toward a Rational Design of Engineered Nano-Photonic Threshold Scale Inhibitors

Scaling, the formation of sparingly soluble salts such as calcium carbonate, is a persistent problem in several water-based industries. The use of chemical scale inhibitors has been at the forefront of scale control strategies. The use of emergent nano-photonic (Quantum Dots) scale inhibitors has unfolded in the last few years owing to their stable fluorescence, promoted scale inhibition efficacy by the high surface area to volume ratio (A/V), and facile tailoring via molecularly engineering the surface. Negatively charged functional groups such as carboxylates, sulfates, and phosphates interfere with the nucleation and crystals growth of inorganic minerals and destabilize the formed polymorphs in the early stages in what is called the threshold effect. Despite the substantial efforts in developing new nano-photonic scale inhibitor platforms, most of the developed platforms report on carboxyl functionalized platforms with no mechanistic study on how the synergy between the functional groups and molecular conformation affects the nano-photonic scale inhibitors performance. In this study, we aim to broaden the scope of our previously reported results on Carboxyl Silicon Quantum Dots (CSiQDs) to include different quantum dots core (i.e. Carbon Quantum Dots) and different functional groups on the core platforms. We aim to study the relationship between the nano-photonic scale inhibitor antiscaling properties and the functional groups, solubility, flexibility, and fluorescence properties. The fluorescence properties will facilitate the inhibition mechanism elucidation of the different functional groups through confocal imaging. This work may pave the way for the rational design of subsequent generation of nano-photonic scale inhibitors.