Talk:Flocculation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DeflocculAnt not deflocculEnt I agree. In essence, these are interrelated topics

also agreed. To understand one term you need to understand the other. plus, in most courses these are taught side-by-side.

There are two different processes causing flocs, that arn't generally clearly distinguished, one is where polymers (or other intermediary) cause aggregation by a process of physical entanglement/connection, and the other is caused by charge (dipoles), the former is more physical and later is more chemical/electrical, the first is slow and benefits greatly from agitation and the second occurs rapidly without, the first is difficult to reverse the second is simple, the first is on a larger scale than the second, the first eventually causes denser flocs that sink while the second softer ones that can float, plus other differences, the best work i've seen on this issue, made the destination very clear by calling both, aggregation, then the first process flocculation and the second coagulation, however few people have worked on, or realise, that there are two fundamentally different processes and so use the terminology interchangeable. this is causing a fair bit of confusion, i've worked in a company where people kept coming round to trying to disperse a flocculated system using decoagulants and were confused when nothing happened. also a bit of a terminology overload; aggregation, agglomeration, flocculation, coagulation, dispersion, deflocculation, decoagulation, dispersant, coagulant, flocculate, deflocculate, decoagulant.

[edit] Saltwater Flow

This page references Salt water flow. I am trying to disambiguate Salt water, but I am unclear what the correct reference should be - or whether this should be a new topic in its own right? I am after expert advice... Pixie2000 20:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coagulation/Flocculation and products

I'm not sure about your definition of flocculation. You may have some confusions between the terms coagulation and flocculation. Coagulation is a chemical process whereas flocculation is a physical process. We cannot interchange the terms. Coagulation is the process which overcomes the energy barrier that exists because of the repulsion energy when two particles come across. There are four basic mechanisms to coagulate two particles:

   * double layer compression
   * charge neutralization
   * entrapment in a precipitate
   * interparticle bridging

The following chemicals are used as coagulants and not as flocculants!

   * alum
   * aluminium chlorohydrate
   * aluminum sulfate
   * calcium oxide
   * iron(III) chloride
   * iron(II) sulfate
   * sodium aluminate
   * sodium silicate  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.236.142.178 (talk) 17:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC) 

This sentence is garbled:

In chemistry: flocculation-gentle agitation that promotes collision between these small aggregates to form floc, it will large enough to settle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.14.154.3 (talk) 09:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)