Modeling approach to the investigation of groundwater corrosion and scaling potential at Benue State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Lately, there have been reports of dissolved ions in water which has caused corrosion, scale problems, and economic issues in groundwater. Hence, the stability indexes such as Puckorius Scaling Index (PSI), Langelier Index (LI), Ryznar Stability Index (RSI), Aggressive index (AI), Larson-Skold Index (LSI), and Potential to Promote Galvanic Corrosion (PPGC) were used study scaling potential and corrosion of groundwater within the study area. 24 groundwater samples were taken and analyzed using APHA, (2012) methods. The aforementioned parameters suggested a variation in values, implies that groundwater is prone to scale, and corrosion and have the tendency to precipitate CaCO₃ in the system at certain sampling points, while at some sampling points groundwater is not prone to corrosion, and scaling and showed a tendency to precipitate CaCO₃ in water. The variation in these values might be due to the variation in pH, temperature, and alkalinity of groundwater within the study area. Further results from, PLI revealed that groundwater is considered free from pollution. From hydrogeochemical facies, it was noticed that geochemical zone of 3 (58%) (Weak acids (CO₃²⁻ + HCO₃⁻) exceed strong acids (SO₄²⁻ + Cl⁻) and 4 (42%) (Strong acids (SO₄²⁻ + Cl⁻) exceed weak acid (CO₃²⁻ + HCO₃⁻). Findings, from the Scholler plot, revealed that carbonic acid weathering is considered to be more dominant in the study area than sulfide oxidation. Results obtained from Pearson’s correlation revealed that groundwater is free from saline water. Correlation plots suggested that ion exchange and dissolution of calcite is the main factor that influences groundwater geochemistry. Spatial variation plot of pH and TDS suggested that groundwater fall within acidic/basic, and is considered to range from good to poor. It is recommended that polyethylene pipes should be used to prevent corrosion and scale in distribution systems, instead of metallic pipes and asbestos-cement materials in water.