Prevention of CaCO_3 scale in ground waters by quartz crystal microbalance

Ground water hamma and fourchi that supply the cities of constantine and ain m'lila drinking water are from calcareous soils. these waters are very hard because they are saturated by! calcium hydrogencarbonate and are capable of depositing large quantities of calcium carbonate (scaling).! scale deposits often cause numerous technical and economical problems. the antiscale properties of k_2hpo_4, k_3po_4, and sodium tripolyphosphate (sttp) applied to hard water hamma and fourchi were studied using electrochemical chronoelectrogravimetry method. chronoelectrogravimetry showed that the calcium carbonate is deposited on the quartz microbalance in three stages; the electrode surface is completely blocked. in addition, in the presence of these inhibitors at very low concentration the surface coverage of deposits on a substrate was reduced.