EXPERIMENTAL GAS CONTENT DETERMINATION IN SLURRIES

摘要

Most commercial slurries contain some entrained air or gas. This contained gas can affect the slurry pumping performance, as small amounts of gas can considerable degrade the pump efficiency and the developed head from the pump. In addition, the contained gas may affect the subsequent processing of the slurries, particularly if a floatation step is used after the pipeline. Contained gasses may improve or degrade the processing of the slurries. The gas content of most commercial slurries is usually small, at a few volume percent. Measurement of this small amount of gas content in slurries is not easy. Density measurements, sampling or chemical analysis can determine the gas content, but none of these methods is easy to do with small gas contents, and the last two are not on-line measurements. An investigation was carried out determine if the speed of sound in slurries could be used as a method to determine gas contents in slurries. The speed of sound is affected by the composition of the slurries, and a very small gas content gives a very large change in the speed of sound in a slurry. It was found that the determining the speed of sound could be used on-line to determine small amounts of gasses in slurries.