Chemical size reduction

Flow Sheets. AH minerals processing operations function on the basis of a flow sheet depicting the flow of soHds and Hquids in the entire plant (6,13,14). The complexity of a flow sheet depends on the nature of the ore treated and the specifications for the final product. The basic operations in a flow sheet are size reduction (qv) (comminution) and/or size separation (see Separation, size), minerals separation, soHd—Hquid separation, and materials handling. The overaH flow sheet depends on whether the specification for the final mineral product is size, chemical composition, ie, grade, or both. Products from a quarry, for example, may have a size specification only, whereas metal concentrates have a grade specification. 

Bryan J. Ennis, Ph.D., President, E G Associates, and Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering, Vanderbilt University Member and Chair of Powder Technology Programming Group of the Particle Technology Forum, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Section 20, Size Reduction and Size Enlargement)... 

Energy Laws Several laws have been proposed to relate size reduction to a single variable, the energy input to the mill. These laws are encompassed in a general differential equation (Walker, Lewis, McAdams, and Gilliland, Principles of Chemical Engineering, 3d ed., McGraw-HiU, New York, 1937) ... 

Your company receives a nickel compound (nickel compound is a listed toxic chemical category) as a bulk solid and performs various size-reduction operations (e.g., grinding) before packaging the compound in 50 pound bags. Your company processes the nickel compound. 

Many crystalline products, including fine chemicals, foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals, require a final particle size that is significantly smaller than that produced during the crystallization or precipitation step. One way of achieving the required particle size is to employ a subsequent size-reduction step using some form of comminution device, frequently a mill. 

Institution of Chemical Engineers, 1975. In Comminution, Institution of Chemical Engineers Working Party concerned with the theory and practice of the size reduction of solid materials. Ed. V.C. Marshall, Institution of Chemical Engineers, Rugby, 83pp. 

The weathering process which eventually reduces the rock of the parent material to the inorganic constituents of soil comprises both physical and chemical changes. Size reduction from rocks to the colloidal state depends not only upon the mechanical action of natural forces but also on chemical solubilisation of certain minerals, action of plant roots, and the effects of organic substances formed by biological activity. 

Stankiewicz and Moulijn extend the definition of process intensification from size reduction of apparatus to dramatic improvements in key features of chemical processing [25]. Substantial decreases in the following process-engineering properties are listed ... 

Size reduction of metal particles results in several changes of the physico-chemical properties. The primary change is observed in the electronic properties of the metal particles which can be characterized by ultraviolet and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS and XPS, respectively) as well as Auger-electron spectroscopy (AES) measurements. Furthermore, morphology of the metal nanoparticles is highly sensitive to the environment, such as ion-metal interaction (e.g. metal-support interaction)... 

The chemical reactivity of the material to be processed for size reduction can pose a great problem. For example, the plant construction itself may be exposed to the threat of corrosion. The size reduction process generally raises the temperature of the material in question and this effect may alter the material in some undesirable way. 

Separation processes, as could be seen from Figure 2.1, position themselves at the back end of the sequence in operations in the mineral processing flowsheet. The front-end operations has been found virtually to terminate with the liberation or the size-reduction processes involving crushing and grinding. It is important to limit the amount of size reduction to that at which adequate liberation is accomplished. The term adequacy is related to the cost involved in comminution and to performance of the concentration methods that follows. The concentration is obtained by separation processes which rely on differences in the properties of the particles, the physical and physico-chemical characteristics of minerals. In this context, it will only be relevant to refer to Table 2.5 which presents a summary of the processes along with the properties of the minerals that are exploited. 

In a chemical process, the transformation of raw materials into desired chemical products usually cannot be achieved in a single step. Instead, the overall transformation is broken down into a number of steps that provide intermediate transformations. These are carried out through reaction, separation, mixing, heating, cooling, pressure change, particle size reduction or enlargement. Once individual steps have been selected, they must be interconnected to carry out the... 

Chemical mineral size reduction, 16 613 Chemical netpoints, in shape-memory polymers, 22 356, 358 Chemical nomenclature, 17 384. See also Nomenclature... 

There are a number of other reasons for carrying out size reduction. It may, for example, be necessary to break a material into very small particles in order to separate two constituents, especially where one is dispersed in small isolated pockets. In addition, the properties of a material may be considerably influenced by the particle size and, for example, the chemical reactivity of fine particles is greater than that of coarse particles, and the colour and covering power of a pigment is considerably affected by the size of the particles. In addition, far more intimate mixing of solids can be achieved if the particle size is small. 

Photochemical decomposition can also be carried out in the presence of a suspension of photoactive material such as Ti02 where substrate absorption onto the uv activated surface can initiate chemical reactions e. g. the oxidation of sulphides to sul-phones and sulphoxides [37]. This technology has been adapted to the destruction of polychlorobiphenyls (PCB s) in wastewater and is of considerable interest in environmental protection. Using pentachlorophenol as a model substrate in the presence of 0.2 % TiOj uv irradiation is relatively efficient in dechlorination (Tab. 4.5) [38]. When ultrasound is used in conjunction with photolysis, dechlorination is dramatically improved. This improvement is the result of three mechanical effects of sonochemistry namely surface cleaning, particle size reduction and increased mass transport to the powder surface. 

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