Precipitates/precipitation hard water

Detergents are designed to be effective in hard water meaning water containing calcium salts that form insoluble calcium carboxylates with soaps These precipitates rob the soap of Its cleansing power and form an unpleasant scum The calcium salts of synthetic deter gents such as sodium lauryl sulfate however are soluble and retain their micelle forming ability even m hard water... 

Water Treatment Industrial CleaningPipplications. Boiler and cooling tower waters are treated with lignosulfonates to prevent scale deposition (78). In such systems, lignosulfonates sequester hard water salts and thus prevent their deposition on metal surfaces. They can also prevent the precipitation of certain iasoluble heat-coagulable particles (79). Typical use levels for such appHcatioas range from 1—1000 ppm. 

Makeup. Makeup treatment depends extensively on the source water. Some steam systems use municipal water as a source. These systems may require dechlorination followed by reverse osmosis (qv) and ion exchange. Other systems use weUwater. In hard water areas, these systems include softening before further purification. Surface waters may require removal of suspended soHds by sedimentation (qv), coagulation, flocculation, and filtration. Calcium may be reduced by precipitation softening or lime softening. Organic contaminants can be removed by absorption on activated carbon. Details of makeup water treatment may be found in many handbooks (22—24) as well as in technical Hterature from water treatment chemical suppHers. 

The presence of a sufficientiy strong chelating agent, ie, one where K in equation 26 is large, keeps the concentration of free metal ion suppressed so that pM is larger than the saturation pM given by the solubiUty product relation (eq. 29) and no soHd phase of MX can form even in the presence of relatively high anion concentrations. The metal is thus sequestered with respect to precipitation by the anion, such as in the prevention of the formation of insoluble soaps in hard water. 

Acylglycerols can be hydrolyzed by heating with acid or base or by treatment with lipases. Hydrolysis with alkali is called saponification and yields salts of free fatty acids and glycerol. This is how soap (a metal salt of an acid derived from fat) was made by our ancestors. One method used potassium hydroxide potash) leached from wood ashes to hydrolyze animal fat (mostly triacylglycerols). (The tendency of such soaps to be precipitated by Mg and Ca ions in hard water makes them less useful than modern detergents.) When the fatty acids esterified at the first and third carbons of glycerol are different, the sec-... 

Calcareous Scale a scale consisting largely of calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide which may be precipitated from a hard water. 

With high-hardness waters, the carbonate-cycle form of precipitation treatment is often preferred to the phosphate-cycle because it forms a less bulky and less dense sludge. The disadvantages of hard-water carbonate-cycle precipitation treatments include ... 

This test measures the minimum lime soap dispersant requirement (LSDR) (in g) which keeps 100 g of sodium oleate from precipitating in hard water (333 ppm CaC03). Although this is a convenient laboratory test, it bears little relation to an real in-use situation. 

When the CMC determination is made by surface tension measurements, the resulting curve appears without minimum as a single surfactant. It is probable that an inversion takes place through the adsorption of the LSDA onto the surface of the Ca soap micelle, so that complete precipitation does not occur [23]. Zhang and Xiao [32] are of the opinion that the dispersion comes from the union of LSDA with the free ionic soap molecules. The particles from the soap-LSDA mixture are far larger than the corresponding soap molecules in soft water and therefore result in turbidity in hard water. 

Soaps are made by heating sodium hydroxide with a fat such as coconut oil, olive oil, or beef fat, which contain esters formed between glycerol and fatty acids (see Section 19.7). The sodium hydroxide attacks the esters and forms the soluble soap. In the case of beef fat, stearic acid forms the soap sodium stearate, seen in (3). Soaps, however, form a scum in hard water. The scum is an impure precipitate of calcium stearate. 

Water hardness in milligrams per liter of total Ca and Mg is considered soft at 0 to 17 mg/L, moderately hard at 60 to 120 mg/L, and very hard at > 180 mg/L. The Langelier saturation index, a measure of CaCOs solubility, should be < 0 in the retentate to prevent precipitation Pure Water Handbook, Osmonics, 1997). 

The protective colloid/wetting agent may be a single anionic agent Turkey Red Oil, for example, combines both functions but is prone to form a precipitate in hard water. Only anionic types are suitable, since nonionic and cationic types generally cause precipitation [31]. Most protective colloids are of the following types ... 

Reactive dyes in general are not unusually sensitive to hard water. Nevertheless, the alkali used in most reactive dyeing processes may precipitate calcium or magnesium hydroxide on... 

Temporary hard water contains divalent cations, such as Ca2+, Mg2+, and Fe2+ and the bicarbonate anion, HC03 . Heating produces, H20(1), C02 (g), and a carbonate precipitate. Permanent hard water does not form a precipitate upon heating the ions it contains, such as S042 are thermally stable. 

A second problem with hard water is that these metals react with soap molecules and form a scum to which bathtub rings, etc., are attributed. Hard water is therefore not the best water to use for efficient soapy water cleaning processes, since the metal-soap precipitation reaction competes with the cleaning action. Water softeners assist with solving this problem too. 

The experimental aspects of this study were focussed on two hard-water lakes in Switzerland, namely, the northern basin of Lake Zurich and Lake Sempach. The hydraulic residence time of Lake Zurich is 1.2 years. Most of the particles in the lake are produced directly or indirectly by biological processes within the lake itself (e.g., photosynthesis, CaC03 precipitation). Phosphorus removal has been implemented in recent years at all wastewater treatment plants discharging into the lake at present Lake Zurich can be described as between meso- and eutrophic. Lake Sempach has an average hydraulic residence time of 15.8 years as in Lake Zurich, particles in the lake waters are primarily autochthonous. Phosphorus concentrations have increased substantially and the lake is eutrophic. 

ChemicaJ/Physical. Forms A -(l-naphthyl)phthalimide at elevated temperatures (Worthing and Hance, 1991). Naptalam will precipitate as the free acid in very acidic or in extremely hard waters (Humburg et al, 1989). 

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