Water Soluble Polymer Flocculants: Synthesis, Characterization, and Performance Assessment

Abstract

Water soluble polymer flocculants are important constituents of solid–liquid separation units for the treatment of a variety of process‐affected effluents. The systematic development of a flocculant relies on a good understanding of flocculation process, polymer synthesis, polymer characterization, and, not the least, flocculation performance assessment as desired for a particular treatment process, all of which are essential to establish meaningful relationships between flocculant microstructure and flocculation efficiency. The aim of this article is to communicate the bigger picture of this research area to the readers. The recent advances in the application of bio/natural, synthetic, and stimuli‐responsive flocculants are reviewed. Then, the basic polymer reaction engineering tools to control the microstructure of flocculants are provided and the techniques for the quantification of flocculant microstructure are concisely discussed. This is followed by a review of the methods used for the characterization of particle‐polymer force measurement, and flocculation/dewatering assessment with attention to the characterization of aggregate structures.

Recent Achievements in Polymer Bio-Based Flocculants for Water Treatment

“…Flocculation with macromolecular compounds generally leads to larger aggregates, and, after reaching their maximal size, a certain decrease is observed. The restructuring of particles or irreversible breakage is responsible for this [ 28 , 29 ].…”

High-temperature resistant water-soluble polymers derived from exotic amino acids

“…Water-soluble polymers have been widely used in water-related application as dispersants, aggregation agents, thickeners, moisturizers, binders and hydrogels. [1][2][3][4][5] The majority of these materials are polysaccharides and their derivatives, proteins, or peptides, which can be used for biological applications. [6][7][8] In addition to natural polymers, synthetic water-soluble polymers such as poly(ethylene oxide), poly(vinyl alcohol), polyacrylates, polyacrylamide and their derivatives have been employed in various industries.…”

“…10,11 However, the heat resistance of conventional water soluble polymers remain too poor for advanced industries that require high thermal stability while processing under harsh conditions. 3,5 On the contrary, polymers possessing ultrahigh thermal stability, such as polyimides, exhibits poor solubility features. Especially, no effective molecular engineering design system exists for optimizing the water solubility features of polyimides due to their rigid polymer backbone and strong interchain interactions; thereby limits their processability, functionalization and subsequently applications as well.…”

Challenges in developing polymer flocculants to improve bitumen quality in non-aqueous extraction processes: an experimental study

“…Of particular interest are polymer flocculants that have been used in the oil sands industry to treat FFT and mature fine tailings (MFT), a topic covered in recent reviews (Vedoy and Soares 2015;Vajihinejad et al 2019). Most flocculants used to treat FFTs are derived from PAMs, which can by synthesized as neutral, anionic, or cationic polymers (Long et al 2006;Li et al 2015;Lu et al 2015Lu et al , 2016aVedoy and Soares 2015;Reis et al 2016;Botha et al 2017;Zhu et al 2017).…”