Solid/liquid separation particles

In the present paper, the previous analysis for moving suspensions is extended to allow reversible deposition by including the short-range Rom repulsion. The apparent surface reaction is then shown to be reversible and first order- in both directions and thus is analogous to gas adsorption at low surface coverage. Applications include solid-liquid separations, particle separation, and chromatography. 

In solid-liquid separations, particle agglomeration can also be used to prevent filter clogging and increase the separation efficiency in general, however, the procedure is less efficient than with gases. 

In this ehapter, the transport proeesses relating to partiele eonservation and flow are eonsidered. It starts with a brief introduetion to fluid-particle hydrodynamics that deseribes the motion of erystals suspended in liquors (Chapter 3) and also enables solid-liquid separation equipment to be sized (Chapter 4). This is followed by the momentum and population balances respeetively, whieh deseribe the eomplex flows and mixing within erystallizers and, together with partieulate erystal formation proeesses (Chapters 5 and 6), enable partiele size distributions from erystallizers to be analysed and predieted (Chapters 7 and 8). 

Crystals suspended in liquors emerging from crystallizers are normally passed to solid-liquid separation devices such as gravity settlers or thickeners that may subsequently feed filters to remove yet more liquid prior to drying. Here the transport processes of particle motion and the flow of fluids through porous media are important in determining equipment size, the operation of which may be intensified by application of a centrifugal force. 

The solid-liquid separation of shinies containing particles below 10 pm is difficult by conventional filtration techniques. A conventional approach would be to use a slurry thickener in which the formation of a filter cake is restricted and the product is discharged continuously as concentrated slurry. Such filters use filter cloths as the filtration medium and are limited to concentrating particles above 5 xm in size. Dead end membrane microfiltration, in which the particle-containing fluid is pumped directly through a polymeric membrane, is used for the industrial clarification and sterilisation of liquids. Such process allows the removal of particles down to 0.1 xm or less, but is only suitable for feeds containing very low concentrations of particles as otherwise the membrane becomes too rapidly clogged.2,4,8... 

Flocculation or clarification processes are solids-liquid separation techniques used to remove suspended solids and colloidal particles such as clays and organic debris from water, leaving it clear and bright. Certain chemicals used (such as alums) also exhibit partial dealkaliz-ing properties, which can be important given that the principal alkaline impurity removed is calcium bicarbonate—the major contributory cause of boiler and heat exchanger scales (present in scales as carbonate), although closely followed by phosphate. 

The separation of solids from liquids forms an important part of almost all front-end and back-end operations in hydrometallurgy. This is due to several reasons, including removal of the gangue or unleached fraction from the leached liquor the need for clarified liquors for ion exchange, solvent extraction, precipitation or other appropriate processing and the post-precipitation or post-crystallization recovery of valuable solids. Solid-liquid separation is influenced by many factors such as the concentration of the suspended solids the particle size distribution the composition the strength and clarity of the leach liquor and the methods of precipitation used. Some important points of the common methods of solid-liquid separation have been dealt with in Chapter 2. 

Sedimentation classifiers, 76 619-620 in depth filtration theory, 11 339 in particle size measurement, 78 142-144 in solid-liquid separation, 76 656-657 Sedimentation rate... 

Flotation is a solid-liquid separation process, that transfers solids to the liquid surface through attachment of gas bubbles to solid particles. Flotation processes are used in the processing of crushed ores, whereby a desired mineral is separated from the gangue or non-mineral containing material. Various applications in solid separation processes are also in use in waste treatment. 

The solids-liquid separation of slurries containing particles below 10 xm is difficult by conventional filtration techniques. A conventional approach would be to use a slurry thickener in which the formation of a filter cake is restricted and the product is discharged continuously as a concentrated slurry. Such filters use filter cloths as the filtration medium... 

Sedimentation is also used for other purposes. For example, relative motion of particles and liquid increases the mass-transfer coefficient. This motion is particulady useful in solvent extraction in immiscible liquid—liquid systems (see Extraction, liquid-liquid). An important commercial use of sedimentation is in continuous countercurrent washing, where a series of continuous thickeners is used in a countercurrent mode in conjunction with reslurrying to remove mother liquor or to wash soluble substances from the solids. Most applications of sedimentation are, however, in straight solid—liquid separation. 

The nature and sizing of equipment depends on the economic values and proportions of the phases as well as certain physical properties that influence relative movements of liquids and particles. Pressure often is the main operating variable so its effect on physical properties should be known. Table 11.1 is a broad classification of mechanical processes of solid-liquid separation. Clarification is the removal of small contents of worthless solids from a valuable liquid. Filtration is applied to the recovery of valuable solids from slurries. Expression is the removal of relatively small contents of liquids from compressible sludges by mechanical means. 

As we discussed earlier for the solid-liquid separation technique, filtration separates particles by forcing the fluid through a filtering medium on which solids are deposited. The conventional filtration involves the separation of large particles (dp > 10 pm) by using canvas, synthetic fabrics, or glass fiber as filter medium. 

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