title: The use of dielectric spectroscopy for the characterisation of polymer-induced flocculation of core-shell particles.
abstract: Flocculation is an important process in separation science, but only few methods are available for on-line evaluation of the process. Recently, it has been shown that dielectric spectroscopy can be used to characterise the flocculation process of hard polystyrene particles. As many "real life" suspensions contain particles covered with a porous layer of organic material, it is of interest to investigate the potential of dielectric spectroscopy to characterise the flocculation of such suspensions as well. In this paper dielectric spectroscopy is used to investigate the flocculation process of core-shell particles. The flocculation process is characterised using a photometric dispersion analyser as a reference method, and the results are compared to the dielectric dispersions measured by dielectric spectroscopy. It is found that the use of the relaxation time of the dielectric dispersion for an evaluation of the flocculation process is commensurate with the use of the photometric dispersion analyser. Furthermore, the magnitude of the dielectric dispersion is observed to decrease as the charge of the core-shell particles is neutralised. Dielectric spectroscopy is thus found to have potential as an on-line flocculation monitor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. pvc@bio.aau.dk
authors.forename: Peter Vittrup
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: Morten Lykkegaard
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: Kristian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Keiding