Contrasting Aqueous Dispersion State of Kaolinite with Different Organic Modification Surfactants

Flocculation sedimentation state observation could be used to facilitate interaction visualization in laboratories and establish theories for industrial manufacture. Herein, kaolinite was obtained from different sources and labeled as K1 and K2. Those characteristic characterizations indicated that silica sand was difficult to remove from refined commercial kaolinite with different sources. Some biosafe and removable surfactants have been used to evaluate the flocculation sedimentation state of kaolinite-surfactant slurry for a long time, indicating those surfactants could accelerate the settling velocities within a certain range, which could be attributed to sufficient surfactant-kaolinite interactions, but decelerate the settling velocities with the excess surfactant addition, which could be attributed to the surfactant-water colloidal characteristic. Then, the flocculation sedimentation mechanism was illustrated in detail based on the kaolinite-surfactants interaction, indicating that the excellent flocculation sedimentation state was beneficial to silica removal with sedimentation method, but the difficult flocculation sedimentation state was beneficial to size classification with differential centrifugation.