Antiscaling properties of novel maleic‐anhydride copolymers prepared via iron (II) – chloride mediated ATRP

A class of maleic anhydride copolymers (YMR‐A series) with a narrow molecular weight distribution between 500–1500 and a polydispersity of 1.0–1.11 was obtained from n‐alkylacrylamide and maleic anhydride monomers via atom transfer radical polymerization. The monomer conversion reached about 71% corresponding to 1:4 [FeCl 2 ] to [SA] molar ratios for (AAH/MA) copolymer initiated by CPN whereas for the polymerization initiated by MCPN the conversion reached 51.9% under similar condition showing better performance of CPN initiator. Resultant polymers were characterized by means of 1 H‐NMR and 13 C‐NMR. The inhibition behavior of these YMR‐A polymers against CaCO 3 and CaSO 4 was evaluated using static scale inhibition method. The inhibition efficiency on the calcium carbonate scale is much higher and even with 5 ppm dosage level the efficiency is around 99.33 % at pH 10.45 and temperature 70°C, where as for calcium sulfate scales the inhibition efficiency, is lower and 99.9% inhibition is observed at 7–9 ppm level. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131 , 39827.