Water soluble polymeric nanofibres for rapid flocculation and enhanced dewatering of mature fine tailings

Water-soluble polymer flocculants have been used to efficiently release entrapped water in oil sands tailings by bridging fine particles to create large heavier flocs which can then settle faster and release water more efficiently. Due to their initial interaction with the fine particles suspended in tailings, polymer nanofibres may perform better than their parent polymers because of the entire surface of the nanofibres being fully accessible to the fine particles. In this work, commercially available poly(acrylamide-co-diallyl dimethylammonium chloride) was chosen as a basis for this study. Initial settling rate, supernatant turbidity, water recovery, capillary suction time, and solids content were measured to determine the effect of polymer nanofibres on solid-liquid separation. The solid forms of the polymer (either as nanofibre or powder) perform better than the polymer solution in each test, with optimum dosages of 5 wt% mature fine tailings (MFT) loading. Nanofibres could achieve settling rates of 60 m/h, while the other forms were only able to achieve 42 m/h. Additionally, the turbidity of the supernatant obtained after flocculation with nanofibres was 15 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU), while the polymer solution and powder produced turbidites of 162 NTU and 70 NTU, respectively. In addition, polymer nanofibres and powders generated larger flocs compared to the polymer solution, which produced small, homogenized flocs.     

Flow of slightly settling slurries in a horizontal rotary drum

An experimental study was conducted to examine the flow of slightly settling slurries in a horizontal rotary drum. The effects of the slurry flow rate, feed solids concentration, particle settling velocity and drum rotational speed on the hold-up solids concentration were investigated. At low drum speeds, the hold-up solids concentration was much higher than that of the feed. However, at higher drum speeds, the hold-up solids concentration approached that in the feed. At a given drum speed, the hold-up solids concentration was found to vary linearly with the feed solids concentration. A semi-empirical correlation was developed to predict the hold-up solids concentration using the drum Froude number, the single particle drag coefficient and a dimensionless slurry feed rate.     

CFD Simulation of Mass Transfer Efficiency and Pressure Drop in a Structured Packed Distillation Column

The pressure drop and mass transfer efficiency for two‐phase flow in a structured packed column were simulated using a commercial CFD package, CFX version 10. The distillation of the methanol/isopropanol system was carried out in a 0.073 m diameter column, with an element composed of a ceramic structured packing and 0.053 m in height. The Height Equivalent to Theoretical Plate (HETP) value varied from 0.106–0.146 m. Pressure drop experiments were measured with an air/water system. The pressure drops at the flooding and loading points were ca. 173 and 580 Pa/m of packing, respectively. HETPs and pressure drops calculated from the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model were compared to their experimental counterparts. The average relative error between CFD predictions and the experimental data for the prediction of dry pressure drop, irrigated pressure drop and mass transfer efficiency are 20.3 %, 23 % and 9.15 %, respectively. In all cases, the CFD predictions show a good agreement with the experimental data, indicating that CFD is a reliable, cost saving and suitable technique for the design and optimization of separation processes.     

Hydraulics and efficiency of screen trays for distillation

Screen trays are proprietary devices similar to sieve trays which are used in distillation and absorption applications. The pressure drop, liquid holdup and entrainment are measured for screen trays in an air/water column and compared to results obtained with sieve trays. The effciencies of both types of trays were compared in a distillation column using systems of various physical properties (methanol/water, acetic acid/water and cyclohexane/n-heptane mixtures). It was found that the screen tray has a lower dry pressure drop, higher liquid holdup, lower entrainment and weeping, and higher jet flooding capacity than the sieve tray. However, the effciencies of both trays are similar for the systems studied. A model was developed for predicting total pressure drop for screen trays using an air/water column. The model was tested using results for methanol/water, cyclohexane/n-heptane and acetic acid/water systems at total reflux. The deviations are within +/- 20% for 90% of the data points. The effect of a bed of mesh packing on the screen tray was also studied. It was found that the packing led to a higher tray effciency, but resulted in a higher tray pressure drop.     

Fibre fractionation using air‐sparged hydrocyclone

Fractionation of mechanical wood pulp into two or more streams on the basis of fibre length has been investigated to recover valuable long fibres from virgin or recycled wood pulp. An air‐sparged hydrocyclone was used to fractionate the pulp at feed mass concentrations (consistencies) of 0.15% and 0.30%. The extent of fibre fractionation, as affected by feed flow rate, air flow rate, ratio of overflow to underflow rates, was studied. As well, the effects of pore size of the air sparger and cyclone length are presented. It was found that at low consistencies of the pulp feed, the overflow stream from the hydrocyclone had a significantly longer average fibre length than that of the feed pulp. The feed pulp consistency, feed flow rate, air flow rate and the ratio of overflow to underflow flow rates had a direct effect on the fractionation performance.     

Planar antenna pattern nulling using differential evolution algorithm

Differential evolution algorithm is used for the pattern synthesis of planar antenna arrays with prescribed pattern nulls by position-only and position-amplitude optimization. The position-only optimization for a planar array allows null synthesis in any prescribed direction. For planar antenna array thinning it is necessary to use position-amplitude optimization for problems involving more than two nulls.     

Experimental studies of liquid flow maldistribution in a random packed column

Liquid flow distribution has been a major concern when scaling up random packed columns. This study concerns the measurements of liquid flow distribution in a large scale column packed with 25.4 mm stainless steel Pall rings. The liquid flow distribution was studied with packed bed height from 0.9 to 3.5 m, liquid flow rate from 2.91 to 6.66 kg/m²·s, and gas flow rate from 0 to 3.0 kg/m²·s. In addition, three systems, water/air, aqueous detergent solution/air and Isopar/air, were used to study the effect of liquid physical properties on liquid flow distribution, and two different liquid distributors were employed to test the effect of liquid distributor design. It was found that liquid flow distribution was strongly influenced by liquid distributor design, packed bed height, gas flow rate and liquid viscosity, slightly influenced by liquid flow rate, but not by liquid surface tension.     

Efficiency of dualflow trays in distillation

The mass transfer efficiencies of dualflow trays with open hole areas of 20, 28 and 37% were experimentally investigated under total reflux conditions in a 300-mm diameter distillation column using methanol-water and methanol-isopropanol systems. The results indicate that the efficiency of a dualflow tray is a strong function of the open hole area, the vapor/liquid load, and liquid properties such as surface tension and density. A fundamental model was developed to predict tray efficiency. The prediction was found to agree with the measured data to within 15.3%.