The aim of this investigation was to find out how properties of a flocculation agent and flocculation kinetics affect the morphology of fibre flocs and how dewatering of a fibre suspension may be attributed to floc morphology. Fibre flocculation, analysed in terms of floc size, mass fractal dimension, floc strength, and the kinetic constant of flocculation, was measured with a digital image ana...

The dewatering performance and fractal characteristics of alum sludge from a drinking-water treatment plant were investigated in this study. Variations in residual turbidity of supernatant, dry solid content (DS), specific resistance to filtration (SRF), floc size, fractal dimension, and zeta potential were analyzed. Sludge dewatering efficiency was evaluated by measuring both DS and SRF. Resul...

In the current study, the kinetics of asphaltene particle flocculation is investigated under a shear flow through numerical simulation. The discrete element method (DEM) is coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to model the agglomeration and fragmentation processes. In addition, a coalescence model is proposed to consider the attachment of colliding particles. The changes in mean asph...

The effect of impeller type and shear rate on the evolution of floc size and structure during shear-induced flocculation of polystyrene particles with aluminum sulfate is investigated by image analysis. One radial flow (six-blade Rushton turbine) and two axial flow (three-blade fluid foil, four-blade 45° pitch) impeller configurations are examined. The steady state average floc size is show...

The proper use of polymers as conditioners is a critical aspect of dewatering processes. In this study, we investigate their physical properties, i.e. size, density and fractal dimension and correlate them with their dewatering characteristics (bound water content, CST and SRF) on alum sludge with cationic polymer conditioning. Using CST measurement to determine the optimum polymer dose may lea...

A study was performed to investigate the impact of turbulent heterogeneity on aggregation and breakup in a flocculation reactor. The influence of the average characteristic velocity gradient (G), particle concentration, and coagulation mechanism on the flocculation performance was also investigated. Experiments were performed in a bench-scale reactor with a low-shear axial-flow impeller using a...