Journal of Chemical Engineering & Process Technology
Open Access

Abstract

Aspen Plus^® Simulation of a Coal Gasification Process (Geometric Analysis)

Syed A Taqvi, Fahim Uddin, Tufa LD, Inayatullah Memon and Maham Hussain

A semi-batch foam-flotation in which air is continuously sparged through an emulsion, with added surfactant, a coagulant, and a solvent, has been shown to be effective in the treatment of steel-rolling mill effluents. The effect of time of flotation, effects of surfactant and alum concentrations, and effect of the solvent volume were all experimentally explored. The oil recovery increased with concentrations of alum and sodium lauryl sulphate of up to around 4 g/l, and then leveled off. Volume of the solvent layer at the top improved the separation of oil with an optimum ratio of 0.167 ml solvent per ml of emulsion. The oil separation was highest for the time of flotation of about 25 minutes, and reemulsification of the separated self-emulsifiable oil was observed beyond this time. A model reported in the literature for the semi-batch flotation has been shown to be inadequate in predicting the experimental data on separation of oil. A mathematical model developed for the separation by foam flotation based on an analogy with a chemical reaction was found to be appreciably better in its predictive capability than the one reported in literature. The new mathematical model has established the separation of oil by foam flotation as a second-order process, and its predictions can be further fine tuned using a parameter referred to as a sticking coefficient (?). The values of ? for the two effluents investigated were equal to 7.9 × 10-5 and 6.7 × 10-5, respectively.