Permeability, flocculated

Filter aids as well as flocculants are employed to improve the filtration characteristics of hard-to-filter suspensions. A filter aid is a finely divided solid material, consisting of hard, strong particles that are, en masse, incompressible. The most common filter aids are applied as an admix to the suspension. These include diatomaceous earth, expanded perlite, Solkafloc, fly ash, or carbon. Filter aids build up a porous, permeable, and rigid lattice structure that retains solid particles and allows the liquid to pass through. These materials are applied in small quantities in clarification or in cases where compressible solids have the potential to foul the filter medium. 

Prepared saltwater completion fluids are made of fresh surface water, with sufficient salts added to produce the proper salt concentration. Usually, the addition of 5 to 10% NaCl, 2% CaClj, or 2% KCl is considered satisfactory for clay inhibition in most formations. Sodium chloride solutions have been extensively used for many years as completion fluids these brines have densities up to 10 Ib/gal. Calcium chloride solutions may have densities up to 11.7 lb/ gal. The limitations of CaClj solutions are (1) flocculation of certain clays, causing permeability reduction, and (2) high pH (10 to 10.5) that may accelerate formation clays dispersion. In such cases, CaC12-based completion fluids should be replaced with potassium chloride solutions. Other clear brines can be formulated using various salts over wide range of densities, as shown in Figure 4-123 [28]. 

Polymer flocculants are now used in a wide range of applications (1). Early interest in these materials was largely based on their ability to improve the dewatering rates (i.e. to increase the permeability) of suspensions. 

Applications as soil conditioners (2) and in the dewatering of phosphate slimes (3) were among the first successful uses of synthetic polymeric flocculants. For this reason, several test methods based on permeability have been developed, including the re-filtration rate method of La Mer (3). 

Even in applications other than dewatering, permeability methods are quite often used to assess the performance of polymeric flocculants, since, in principle, they can give a very sensitive indication of the state of aggregation of particles and are useful in locating optimum polymer concentrations. 

Traditional permeability tests are time-consuming and subject to some uncertainties (4). In the present paper, we describe an automated technique for determining the filtrability of fairly dilute suspensions, which can give useful information, on the behaviour of polymeric flocculants. 

The second filtration is carried out under a constant pressure difference (normally by applying suction) and the time to filter a known volume is noted. This re-filtration time is directly related to the permeability of the filter cake and can be greatly reduced by flocculation. 

The method described here provides a convenient means of determining the specific filtration resistance of fairly dilute suspensions. Results for clay suspensions flocculated by cationic polymers show that the specific resistance gives a sensitive indication of flocculation and is a useful guide in the selection of optimum flocculant concentrations. In a series of trials not reported here, it has been shown that the specific resistance results are very well matched by re-filtration rate data, as expected. The results also agree well with other, unrelated techniques. For more concentrated suspensions, some discrepancies have been found between permeability methods and other measures of flocculation (4). 

Liquid form Extra precautions with electrostatic paint applications systems Limited material compatibility for delivery systems Can exhibit high water permeability Pigment flocculation... 

Hydrotalcite is often too fine grained to produce treatment columns with suitable permeability. As an alternative, the sorbent may be mixed with contaminated water in a tank (Lazaridis et al, 2002). The spent sorbent is then separated from the treated water by flocculation, flotation, or other separation methods (see Section 7.2.4). Lazaridis et al. (2002) investigated the use of surfactants with dispersed-air flotation to separate spent hydrotalcites from treated water. At ionic strengths of 0.1 M using KNO3, effective flotation and separation could be obtained by using a mixture of dodecylpyridinium chloride, sodium dodecylhydrogen sulfate, and a cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide frother (Lazaridis et al., 2002,322,323). 

Application of the electric double layer theory to soil minerals at a quantitative level is difficult because soil mineral surfaces at the microscopic scale are not well defined, that is, they are neither perfectly spherical nor flat, as the double layer requires. However, application of the double layer theory at a qualitative level is appropriate because it explains much of the behavior of soil minerals in solution, for example, dispersion, flocculation, soil permeability, and cation and/or anion adsorption. When equilibrium between the counterions at the surface (near the charged surface) and the equilibrium solution is met, the average concentration of the counterions at any... 

The specific surface area, like the PSD, is thus a quality whose value depends on how it is defined, and is liable to be affected by any pretreatment or conditions affecting the degree of flocculation. In practice, air permeability methods are widely used. Typical values are 300-350 m kg for modern ordinary Portland cements and 400-450 m kg " for rapidhardening Portland cements. 

Epichlorohydrin elastomers may be chemically modified by nucleophilic substitution reactions at the side-chain chloromethyl group. Numerous substituted products have found applications as flame retardants, flocculating agents, selectively permeable membranes, photosensi ti ve materials, etc. 

The permeability decreases as the applied pressure increases, due to Ui increase in the packing density [26]. Flocculation of the ceramic suspension before filtration gives much higher permeabilities, often by a factor of 10. To accoimt for fiocculation during filtration, a two-layer... 

McDonogh R.M., Fell C.J.D., Fane A.G. (1984), Surface charge and permeability in the ultrafiltration of non-flocculating colloids. Journal of Membrane Science, 21,285-294. 

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