The influence of precipitate/crystal properties on centrifugal separation

摘要

Centrifuges are widely used in food and biochemical industry for separation of precipitated or crystallized products. It is well known, that particle size and particle shape strongly influence the filtering and sedimenting behaviour in the following separation step. Especially with biological products the compressibility of the materials (e.g. proteins) can further deteriorate the separation performance. rnThis paper will address the influence of the various particle properties (particle size distribution, particle shape, agglomeration) on the separation behaviour in centrifuges and how the precipitation/crystallization process can manipulate these properties. Different precipitation/crystallization processes are compared on their impact on particle properties. The separation performance is characterized in a laboratory bucket centrifuge which allows the real-time measurement of dewatering kinetics and sedimentation behaviour for the suspensions under investigation. The collected data from the laboratory centrifuge can be used for the design and scale-up of the centrifuge process.