Control of the desupersaturation reactor used in the SPARRO process
Master Thesis
2003
Permanent link to this Item
Authors
Journal Title
Link to Journal
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Publisher
University of Cape Town
Department
License
Series
Abstract
The work described in this thesis focuses on the Slurry Precipitation And Recycle Reverse Osmosis (SPARRO) process. The process was designed to treat calcium sulphate (gypsum) scaling mine waters by encouraging preferentlal crystal growth onto introduced seeds, rather than on the reverse osmosis membranes. The major problem faced by the SPARRO process was the short membrane life span, possibly due to damage caused by contact with gypsum crystals. Gypsum exists in two extreme morphologies, plate and needle-like crystals, which are formed from high (0.2 M) and low (0.04 M) concentration of CaCl2 and Na2SO4 solutions respectively. This research reinvestigated the SPARRO process from a crystallisation perspective with the aims of: • Increasing the level of understanding of fundamental aspects of the SPARRO process. • Developing a technique to quantify the gypsum crystal morphology. • Developing design specifications for a 5 L lab scale desupersaturation reactor. • Developing and defining the critical parameters in controlling production of gypsum of a specified crystal size and morphology in the desupersaturation reactor.
Description
Bibliography: leaves 84-86.
Keywords
Reference:
Seewoo, S. 2003. Control of the desupersaturation reactor used in the SPARRO process. University of Cape Town.