Flocculation and me

This paper is mainly a review of the author's previous research, which was aimed at establishing a theoretical protocol for the design and operation of flocculators based on data from experiments and simulations of the flocculation process. Flocculation is the main pretreatment process of the rapid sand filtration system, and the process produces settleable flocs in the sedimentation basin, reducing the solid load flowing to the sand filter. We tried to make the transition from empirical to theoretical approaches in the design and operation of flocculators by combining the three categories of flocculation research: floc characteristics, flocculation kinetics, and engineering aspects of flocculation. The floc density function and the floc strength function were proposed as important attributes of floc. The Levich's Equation, based on the assumption of viscous subrange diffusion control, represented the basic collision kinetics during flocculation. Finally, examples of engineering applications using our flocculation research were described. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.