(101c) Practical Aspects of Slurries and Solid Liquid Separations

Slurries and solids liquids separations are encountered regularly in chemical engineering.  The number of different approaches and the translation to field experience with the wide range of possible fluid properties and the equipment to execute the unit operations presents an exciting and complex chemical engineering adventure.

Terms, descriptive properties and unique test methods lead to complex and interesting interdependencies of methods and means to install successfully equipment to produce results.  Many times solids and separation terminology is borrowed and influenced from a wide range of product markets including foods, mining and pharma.  Solids handling and slurry handling has many cross market opportunities for one application to be evolved into a solution for other market applications.

One area of focus in recent projects has been to insure application of the indicative sampling and testing for establishing the important fluid properties for a system.  This information developed in conjunction with the process parameters established from development experiments determined for sizing equipment will insure successful slurry and solids liquid separation applications.