DESALINATION

ELSEVIER Desalination 158 (2003) 259-265

www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

Mechanical dewatering of suspension

D. Mihoubi”*, J. Vaxelaireb, F. Zagrouba”, A. Bellagi”

“lnstitut National de Recherch Scientljique et Technique, B.P 95, 2050 Hammam-L$ Tunisia
Fax +216 71430934; email: daoued.mihoubi@etud.univ-pa@
hLGPP-ENSGT19 EA1932, Rue Jules Ferry, 64000 Pau, France
‘Ecole Nationale d’lngenieurs de Monastil: Av. Ibn Eljazzar, 5000 Monastir, Tunisia

Received 3 February 2003; accepted 10 February 2003

Abstract

Most of plants producing or treating solid-liquid mixtures generate a large amount of residual sludge. Many
mineral types of slurry occur in a large range of industrial wastes, including those from mining, ceramics, paper and
health care industries. Nowadays, according to new environmental regulations, a reduction of these waste volumes
is required. Owing to their relatively low energy cost, filtration processes are often preferred to thermal drying
devices to achieve this volume reduction. Because of the difficulty of the rheology behaviour of the residual sludge
and its stability, we chose to use a synthetic suspension approach to the residual sludge. In this work, mineral sludge
(kaolin) was considered. Some experiments were carried out on laboratory filtration-compression cells; the use of
the Ruth relationship and the approach of Shirato and co-workers were tested to characterise this slurry in filtration
and compression, respectively.

Keywords: Filtration; Consolidation; Expression; Modelling; Solid-liquid separation; Ruth relationship

1. Introduction to express liquid from cake is negligible compared

to the heat required for drying. Consequently, it
Reduction of liquid content is important to
is desirable to remove the maximum feasible
trucking cost and the landfill characteristics of
amount by mechanical pressing. Many filters are
waste materials. Decreased energy requirements
equipped with membrane for expression. Signi-
for drying and improved incineration result from
ficant questions include knowing what pressure
lowered moisture fractions. The energy required
should be used during filtration and expression
to effect the best results. With the advent of
*Corresponding author.

Presented at the European Conference on Desalination and the Environment: Fresh Water for All, Malta, 4--8 Ma,v 2003.
European Desalination Society, International Water Association.

00 1l-91 64/03/$- See front matter 0 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
PII: SOOII-9164(03)00461-2
controls on the liquid content of wet cake, solid-
liquid engineers are able to use height filtration
pressures.
Many studies were published in the scientific
literature to describe cake formation and proposed
some theoretical modelling of this kind of solid-
liquid separation [l-l I]. However, most of these
works use different notation and a basic hypo-
thesis. which can trouble potential users of these
results. Moreover. no significant effort was made
to explain how to use these theoretical approaches
to scale-up filtration operations. Finally, some
discussions remain concerning the proper deriva- Ll._
&I
tion of the ftmdamental equations, notably. the
stress balance [2,12]. So, despite the relative wealth Fig. I. Schematic of filtration-expression cell. 1. PC; 2.
of research on the subject, engineers are still more balance; 3, filtrate; 4, piston; 5, sludge; 6, displacement
confident with conventional cake filtration theory meter; 7. overflow; 8. porous media.
[ 131 to analyse and design filtration processes.
In the particular case of residual sludge, cakes the mass of the filtrate and the piston position as
often exhibit a compressible behaviour. Then a a function of time.
signiticant quantity of liquid can be removed by The results obtained with the set-up shown in
expression. This second step of the dewatering Fig. 2 are plotted in the form of time over filtrate
can be characterised according to the approach volume on the filtrate rate. The filtration process
proposed by [ 141. Whereas these results date from is usually represented by two phases, spared by a
almost 20 years ago, their use for process design transition point, in series: the filtration, where a
remains weakly considered by engineers. cake is built from the suspension, and the expres-
The aim of this work was to evaluate, from sion that enables the expulsion of extra liquid by
laboratory experimental data, the performances a squeezing action.
of conventional cake filtration theory and expres-
sion model on a mineral sludge. From this compa-
rison designing parameters have been calculated. 3. Calculation of overall filtration characteristic
Filter cake steadily builds on the filter medium
2. Filtration equipment as soon as the filtration process starts, The surface
area of the growing filter cake equals exactly the
In Fig. 1 the experimental set-up ofthe filtration-
area ofthe filter media. In this work, the evolution
expression equipment is schematically shown. It of the filtrate is represented by the well-known
consists of a cylinder with a porous metal plate, Ruth equation for constant pressure filtration [ 13 1
which is covered with a filter paper, and a moved in the form:
piston related to the displacement meter to carry
out a filtration experiment; the sludge is poured
into the cylinder, a closed piston is placed on top (1)
of the sludge and after applying gas pressure on
the piston the filtrate is collected onto a balance, where t is the filtrate time, I’is the tiltrate vohune,
which is connected to a computer that registers a is the specific average resistance, AP is theapplied
 D. Milhoubi et al. /Desalination 158 (2003) 259-265 261

4.5Et07

4.OE+07

3.5E+07

3.OE+07

:2.5E+07

:2.OE+07
Z
15Et07

l.OE+07

5.OE+06

O.OE+OO J
OOE+OO Z.OE-05 4.OE-05 6.OE-05 8.OE-05 l.OE-04 1.2E-04 1.4E-04 1.6E-04
vb+) Fig. 2. Point of transition.

filtration pressure, C is the dry mass of solid per This last equation is used to calculate the
unit of volume filtrate, ~1 is the liquid dynamic pressure drop in the filter cake by deducting the
viscosity, R,,,is the filter medium resistance and A pressure drop in the filter from the total applied
is the filter area. pressure.
According to [ 151the average specific resistance
and the average cake concentration by volume APR=AP- +Q
fraction can be described by power law functions
of the cake-forming pressure (P,): At any instant the height of the cake is
calculated from the relation [5]:
a = a, (1- n)Aq (2)
M:-“‘-,r A
L= (7)
c=C,(l-m)AP; W%C,PJ-m-~)Q
(3)
and the volume concentration inside the filter cake
where a,, ~1,C, and m are empirical constants.
at height y is:
The average mass of dry cake per unit volume
filtrate is obtained from the average cake concen- s-m-,,,
tration and the mass fraction of the solid in the (8)
feed slurry by:

1
C= (4) 4. Expression
l-s I-C
_--W
According to the approach of Shirato and co-
“PI CP,
workers the expression can be divided into two
where p,, p,are the liquid and solid densities, res- steps. In the first step (primary consolidation) the
pectively. evolution of the cake porosity (or void ratio) only
The instantaneous filtrate rate (Q) follows depends on local solid compressive pressure, p,.
from Eq. (1) in its differential form: An increase of P,~ instantaneously leads to a
decrease of the cake porosity. In the second step
(secondary consolidation) a creep effect is con-
(5) sidered and the variation of the cake porosity (or
262 D. Milhoubi et al. I’Desalination 1.58 (2003) 259-265

void ratio) depends on both local solid compres-

sive pressure and time:
Terzaghi
Model
(9)

with e, w, I‘ andp, represent void ratio, specific

volume of wet cake, consolidation time and local Voight
solid compressive pressure, respectively. The first Model

term on the right side of Eq. (9) indicates the time

rate of change in e due to creep effect (Terzaghi
element); the second term is the change due top,.
This modelling can be represented by a usual
rheological scheme that associates elastic and
viscous elements (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. Rheological model.
The equation, which relates, during the secon-
dary consolidation, the void ratio to both compres-
Shirato and co-workers have analytically inte-
sive pressure and time, can be derived from the grated Eq. (11) to derive cake thickness under a
Boltzmann superposition principle:
constant pressure:

(10)
UC = +-$ =B(l - exp(-qt,.))

(P, - P(O)b
i ’ [ il”,p.tcJj (12)
+(1-B I-exp -
where p, (0) is the local compressive pressure
when t,,= 0 and z is the so-called dummy variable
for representing an arbitrary consolidation time where UC indicates the average degree of con-
ranging up to a given elapsed time, tC.Substituting solidation over the total cake thickness at time t,.
Eq. (IO) into Eq. (9) and applying continuity L, is the initial cake thickness, i is the number of
equation it becomes: drainage surface, L,is the final equilibrium thick-
ness under a constant pressure p, L is the cake
thickness at time t, and w, is the total solid mass
per unit sectional area.

=c a-
_&
eaw*
This analysis was recently completed
[ 16,171, who added a second viscous element in
by

the rheological scheme to better describe the

where p = E,IE,, q = E,IG, Ce= pFE,Iq(l + e) residual sludge behaviour at the end ofthe expres-
and l/E, is the-so-called coefficient of volume sion.
change; E, and G are the rigidity and the viscosity When the cake does not exhibit a viscoelastic
of the Voight element, respectively. behaviour only the first right term of Eq. ( 12) can
Assuming a sinusoidal profile for the p, dis- be considered:
tribution through the cake at the beginning of the
expression and appropriate boundary conditions, UC = I - Bexp(-nt) (13)
 D. Milhoubi et al. / Desalination 158 (2003) 259-265 263

5. Experimental results and discussion Table 1

Parameters of filtration
5.1. Filtration
From experimental data and according to the Applied Cake forming Specific Moisture
pressurepressure resistance ratio
Ruth relationship applied on the filtration phase
Pa) (Pa) (m/kg)
a couple of parameters can be derived. They are
5 466866 1.012~10’~ 1.4062187
reported in Table 1 for different applied pressures.
4 338874.75 8,523x10’* 1.458843
From the results reported in Table 1 and using
3 263798.85 7.26~10’~ 1.4554973
Eqs. (2) and (3) some parameters characterising 2 190538.43 5.829~10” 1.488743
the filtration of this mineral slurry were derived:
Constant C, 0.142
Exponent m 0.102
and cake height with time. In Fig. 4 we noted good
Constant a, 8.424.10”
agreement between measured and simulated data.
Exponent n 0.618
The cake thickness rapidly increased, as shown
This set of parameters was used in Eqs. (3)- in Fig. 5. During the later stage ofthe filtration phase
(8) to calculate the theoretical evolution of the the cake grows, depending on applied pressure,
cumulative volume of filtrate, mass of filter cake until a thickness of 80 mm is reached.

-Simulation

2 0.00006

0 100 2M) 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Fig. 4. Evolution filtrate volume vs. time
Time (I) (P = 5 bar).

80

150000 200000 Fig. 5. Evolution of cake height vs. time

Filtration time (s) at different applied pressure.
264 D. Milhoubi et al. 1’
Desalination 158 (2003) 259-265

Fig. 6. Evolution of mass of filter cake

0 50000 I00000 I sooilo 2oOQoo 250000 300000 35OQOil 400000
Filtration time (s) and concentrations vs. time (P = 5 bar).

:
P 360000
f!
a 340000

320000

0 50000 I 00000 I50000 2ooocil 25OOQO Fig. 7. Evolution of pressure of cake vs.
Filtration time (5) time (P = 5 bar).

In Fig. 6 the mass of filter cake and cake con- 6. Conclusion

centration vs. time are shown at an applied pres-
Management of residual sludge is a topical
sure of 5 bar. The evolution ofcake-forming pressure
subject; new environmental regulations oblige
vs. time is presented in Fig. 7.
closing of the disposal for these wastes. Because
of these limitations, only two ways of elimination
5.2. Expression
would be considered: incineration and land
Table 2 shows the parameters of the three application. The study of combination in series
Terzaghi models to fit the average consolidation. of mechanical dewatering and thermal drying is
The experimental results agree best with the three- in keeping with these prospects. In this study, we
parameter Terzaghi model. are interested in mechanical dewatering. Experi-
mental tests were carried out on laboratory sludge.
Table 2
Estimated parameter of consolidation

Pressure Terzaghi Terzaghi-Voight Terzaghi-Voight

(bar) rr2Ce14w’, RZ B rrZCe/4w20 R2 B rl RZ
q
5 0.0026 0.9280 0.1308 0.11783 0.00178 0.9923 0.8863 0.00186 0.9889
4 0.00253 0.9124 0.1518 0.18915 0.0016 0.9950 0.8588 0.00165 0.9920
2 0.00036 0.9768 0.0973 0.02284 0.00032 0.9946 0.9316 0.00033 ..---0.9926
 D. Milhoubi et al. / Desalination
Classic phases of filtration and expression appear PI
successively. The empirical relation among con-
centration, specific resistance and pressure was
found. The average consolidation ratio was calcu-
lated using the amount of filtration during the con-
solidation. The result showed that the Terzaghi-
Voight model coincides well with the experiment
of the pilot test filter.
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