Novel wedge-shaped doubly inclined chamber for the flow-through separation of suspended particles

Combined standing and propagating wave modes have previously been successfully used by the authors for simultaneous agglomeration and transportation of small particles suspended in still water. The present study of this method with flowing water, using a 120 x 350 x 13 mm3 agglomerator, confirmed that the proposed method is applicable with suspended SiO2 particles of varying size. The process was found to be most efficient at flow rates below a certain threshold, which varies with particle size. This threshold was found to be 5 ml/s for a particle size of 7.9 microns at an ultrasonic frequency of 2 MHz corresponding to 0.74 mm wavelength. The existence of a maximum particle transport velocity was demonstrated.