Typical applications of flocculants for solid-liquid separation are:
- 1. Chemical Industry.
- 2. Mineral processing and benefication.
- 3. Coal washeries.
- 4. Textile and paper industry.
- 5. Iron and steel Industry.
- 6. Chemical and metallurgy operations.
- 7. Waste water treatment and primary effluent treatment processes.
- 8. Separation of immissible oils/liquids from water for pollution control and recovery of valuable oils.
- 9. Improved filtration or centrifuging operations.
- 10. Air filtration techniques.
- 11. Treatment of mine waters.
- 12. Treatment of waste waters containing dyestuff, pigments, pesticides, tannaries, textile and paper and pulp industry.
- 13. Selective flocculation of mineral particles for physical benefication of ores and minerals.
- 14. Treatment and re-use of sewage water.
Industrial Application
In general this technique gives greatly enhanced separation rate and more clear water or solution. The settled sludge containing floc of solid particles generally gives faster filtration rate due to lesser degree of blocking of filter media pores.
Use of flocculants can offer major cost saving and hence it has become quite common in many industrial applications. Generally considerable reduction in equipment size and capital cost is possible with very nominal cost due to use of flocculant. Flocculants can also be used for faster separation of oil-water emulsions.
With Intelligent use of conditioners followed by flocculant it may be possible to separate even those solid or oily particles which are otherwise extremely difficult to separate.
Generally any industry requiring solid-liquid separation either in manufacturing operations or for treatment of waste water can get considerable befits from use of flocculants. This can be by ways of process improvements, increased production or by reduction in size of plant facilities like settling tanks, thickners, clarifiers by factor of 4 to 15 times.
In waste water treament, in many cases a prior removal of suspended particles or oily substances by use of flocculants with or without use of conditioner in primary effluent treatment operation can result in significant reduction in pollutant load including BOD & COD so that load for final treatment process is reduced.
In order to derive rich benifits from use of flocculants, knowledge and first hand experience by technical personel of user industry is essential.
MorePreparing dilute solution of flocsure flocculant for Laboratory Trials
0.5% solutions of the different grades of flocculants are prepared in water (see solution preparation method) Take representative sample of slurry requiring treatment and to each 500 ml of the slurry sample add 2ml, 5ml, 10ml of flocculant solution with slow stirring and continue stirring for couple of minutes. Transfer this in 500 ml. measuring cylinder and observe settling rate of flocculated solids. Compare the same with slurry where no flocculant is added. Level of settled solids against time is recorded. Generally the type & dosage of flocculant that gives maximum settling rate is chosen for plant scale application. This sample experiment gives very useful information as to which flocculant is most suitable for your application and a rough idea about quantity of flocculant to be added. More experiments can be done to find out about most optimum dose of flocculant to be added. In case if any of the flocculant does not give good flocs or acceptable clarity, a prioraddition with a conditioner may become necessary. This can be tried out as explained later. Initially between 1 to 5 ml of 5% Solution of conditioner may be added per 500 ml of sample followed by pH adjustment and flocculant treatment. Generally ratio of conditioner to flocculant is 100: 20-50 by weight. Conduct Laboratory Trials of flocculant on your sample seeing is believing !Many Industries get benifited by use of flocculants.
TYPICAL FLOW-SHEET FOR USING FLOCCULANT