The settling of a porous body through a density interface

Abstract

In a large-scale process at I.C.I. Mond Division a flocculated suspension of fine solid particles is allowed to settle through an aqueous solution towards the horizontal interface with an underlying denser solution. When the solids have settled into the lower layer they are pumped away and dumped while the clarified upper layer can be safely disposed of or recycled. The passage of the floes through the interface is the rate-determining step in the process, and the analysis of this part of it is the subject of the paper. It is hoped that the analysis may have a much wider application in that the settling process could be used as the basis of a direct laboratory method of measuring properties of floes. At present both the porosity and permeability of flocs are almost impossible to measure directly, but, using the present analysis, the settling of a single floc through two successive density interfaces would provide (in principle) values for both.