• Denman, John
• Bakir, Hakan

Abstract

<p>Surface chemistry, morphological and physical properties of nano-particles in soils affect the settling behaviour of suspended particles in sedimentation clarifiers used in the raw sugar manufacturing process. This paper reveals subtle differences in the chemical specie compositions between soils that have good settling behaviour and those that do not using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). TOF-SIMS was further used to provide an understanding of differences between wet and dry soils that influence their settling behaviour. Differences in packing arrangements of the nano-particles in the soils and the presence of inter voids between individual particles and between microflocs, as revealed by high resolution microscopic techniques, provided evidence that the use of high density particles such as sugarcane bagasse fly ash was effective in increasing the settling rate of slow settling soils.</p>

Topics

• density
• surface
• x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
• void
• spectrometry
• selective ion monitoring
• secondary ion mass spectrometry