| Summary: | This study describes a novel approach using fibrous Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>-Nylon 6 composites to induce inhibition behavior in silica scaling systems. The composite fibers were fabricated with a wet-spinning process using the coagulation of a methanolic Nylon-CaCl<sub>2</sub> solution with Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> powder after immersing the thread-like solution in water. The mesoporous nylon fibers composed of Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> powders ranging from 10 to 30 wt% loading demonstrated superior adsorption capabilities to silica in water, behaving with the Freundlich model and exhibiting effective multilayer adsorption onto the Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> sites embedded in the fiber. Furthermore, the composite fibers inhibited silica scaling, even at high concentrations, due to a substantially efficient reduction in soluble silica when the composite fiber was present in the system. The utilization of 15 g of composite fibers resulted in a rapid drop to approximately 30 mg/L within the initial 10 h, which is a considerable improvement compared to the 300 mg/L observed in the fiber-free control sample. Notably, the presence of an elevated fiber content exceeding 7.5 g demonstrated the complete inhibition of silica precipitation. An analysis of the pore volume using nitrogen adsorption experiments before and after silica adsorption showed that silica adsorption resulted in a significant decrease in mesoporous properties at the alumina sites. This indicated an efficient adsorption of silica onto the alumina site, effectively removing silica from the system.
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