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The Chemistry of the Chelation Effect
Chelation is a unique aspect of chemistry that involves the complexation, or stabilization, of metal ion naturally found in aqueous solutions. Chelation effects are utilized in various industries providing benefits that include cleaning, water treatment, metalworking, and the prevention of mineral deposit spotting of plants grown in nurseries and agricultural applications. Chelation basically creates a ring structure around metal ions preventing them from combining with other metal ions that would otherwise result in insoluble formations.
General Description:
When positively charged metal ions such as calcium, iron, manganese, copper, magnesium, etc., are found naturally in aqueous solutions, they are not in a segregated environment. Rather, they are mixed in with other anions and by water molecules which are constantly trying to "hydrate" these ionic species. These water molecules, and other complex molecules (including chelating agents) that associate with these metal ions are generally called "ligands."
When a metal ion creates a complex with a ligand, a ring structure will result. This ring structure changes the character of the metal ion - and the reactions that it could normally undergo. The term that is designated to this chemical reaction is Chelation . The ligand that reacts with the metal is given the term chelate or chelating agent. SPER Chemical manufactures a variety of chelating agents including: Sequest-All EMC, Linear 2, and Sequest-All. Refer to these products and their corresponding agricultural products that include beneficial bio-growth control. There is a similar chemical reaction called "sequestration", which is defined as a formation of a water soluble, stable chelate. Sequestration is actually a subset of the chelation, and is not considered as a completely interchangeable term.
Applications:
There are a number of applications for chelating agents, however, we will provide discussion in regards to its beneficial application in potable (drinking) water and agricultural and/or nursery uses:
Potable Water Treatment:
It is not always economically practical for drinking water suppliers to soften hard water sources prior to making the water available to consumers. However, many of the problems associated with water that included high amounts of minerals can be controlled or stabilized by the addition of chelating agents. Where there may be high levels of iron and/or manganese, the addition of Sequest-All EMC, Linear2, or Sequest-All can prevent the aesthetically unpleasant effects of "red water" (iron) and "black water" (manganese). Please refer to our Dosage Calculator to find out the amount of treatment may be necessary for controlling problems associated with these discolored water problems. Other potable water treatment benefits includes scale prevention and removal of existing scale deposit and corrosion inhibition.
Agricultural Irrigation Application:
Chelating agents are found to be highly beneficial when included in the irrigation water in many agricultural applications. These treatments can help both small plant nurseries as well as large grove or farm water irrigation systems with the problems that arise from using hard water. First, these treatments can prevent calcium scale from clogging drip lines, sprinkling heads, and microjets. When the treatment is applied on a consistent basis, the treatments will maintain the irrigation system assuring valuable water reaches all of your plants. Another benefit is the prevention of mineral scale "white spotting" that can spoil the attractiveness of your plants. One of the function of an effective chelating agent is to allow minerals in the irrigation water to "roll off" the leaves thereby preventing calcium and/or iron from spotting the plants leaves.
Metalworking Application:
Chelating agents are used in all phases of metalworking from surface preparation and metal cleaning to metal finishing and plating. . The goal in many metalworking treatments is to prepare a metal surface for plating, coating, or brightening by removing surface greases and oils, by removing rust, smut and other oxides and by protecting the cleaned surface from contamination prior to later treatments. Sequest-All EMC is an excellent product to use for this purpose
During a metal plating operation, chelating agents can be used to control the rate of availability of the plating metal ion and to chelate contamination metal ions in a plating bath. Chelating agents can be used as a replacement for toxic cyanide in plating baths.
Oil Field Applications:
Scale formations can be a serious problem in oil gas production. In the well itself, plugging due to scale formation in the underground rock formation holding the oil or gas can reduce production flow as can the formation of mineral scale in the well casing. In this situation, specialized formulations of chelating agents can be injected into the wells to reduce the tendency to plugging and scale formation. During the recovery of oil and gas at the well head, there is a considerable reduction of pressure in the system. Chelating agents can be added to the production flow to reduce this tendency and prevent precipitation and formation plugging.
Finally, for optimum growth, plants need a number of different metal ion micronutrients. These are often made available by including these metals in fertilizers. However, the addition of a metal salt to fertilizer is sometimes ineffective. These metal ions can interact with soil components and be precipitated far from the plant roots where the metal ions are absorbed. If chelating agents are added with these metal ion micronutrients, the metal chelates are developed and can migrate through the soil rather that reacting with it, and can give up the vital trace metals to the root system with a much greater efficiency. Because of this improved efficiency, lower levels of metal ion micronutrients can be used in their chelate form in fertilizers.
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