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Updated: May 2, 2026

Calcium Carbonate Formation in the Presence of Biopolymeric Additives
Published on: May 14, 2019
In situ probing calcium carbonate formation by combining fast controlled precipitation method and small-angle X-ray
Yanjia Chao1, Olivier Horner, Philippe Vallée
1EDF R&D, Laboratoire National d'Hydraulique et Environnement , 6 Quai Watier, 78401 Chatou, Cedex, France.
Abstract:
The initial stage of calcium carbonate nucleation and growth, found usually in "natural" precipitation conditions, is still not well understood. The calcium carbonate formation for moderate supersaturation level could be achieved by an original method called the fast controlled precipitation (FCP) method. FCP was coupled with SAXS (small-angle X-ray scattering) measurements to get insight into the nucleation and growth mechanisms of calcium carbonate particles in Ca(HCO3)2 aqueous solutions. Two size distributions of particles were observed. The particle size evolutions of these two distributions were obtained by analyzing the SAXS data. A nice agreement was obtained between the total volume fractions of CaCO3 obtained by SAXS analysis and by pH-resistivity curve modeling (from FCP tests).

