Spherical agglomeration coalescence process

Agglomeration The aggregation of particles, droplets, or bubbles in a dispersion. This term is sometimes used to indicate a combination of aggregation and coalescence processes. See Spherical Agglomeration. 

Catalyst-supporting materials are used to immobilize catalysts and to eliminate separation processes. The reasons to use a catalyst support include (1) to increase the surface area of the catalyst so the reactant can contact the active species easily due to a higher per unit mass of active ingredients (2) to stabilize the catalyst against agglomeration and coalescence (fuse or unite), usually referred to as a thermal stabilization (3) to decrease the density of the catalyst and (4) to eliminate the separation of catalysts from products. Catalyst-supporting materials are frequently porous, which means that most of the active catalysts are located inside the physical boundary of the catalyst particles. These materials include granular, powder, colloidal, coprecipitated, extruded, pelleted, and spherical materials. Three solids widely used as catalyst supports are activated carbon, silica gel, and alumina ... 

In immiscible liquid agglomeration, particles with a small amount of adsorbed binding liquid on their surfaces collide and coalesce to form larger entities. In the sol-gel process (see also Section 5.3.2, Fig. 5.52), another agglomeration technique that occurs in liquid phase, fine particles are initially suspended in a binder liquid. The suspension is then formed into spherical droplets and the excess binder is removed to solidify the droplets into a particulate product. 

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