Solid-liquid separation by sonochemistry: a new approach for the separation of mineral suspensions

The effect of sonochemistry to acidify solutions was applied for the solid-liquid separation of three kinds of mineral suspensions. At first, the relationship was measured between zeta-potential and pH in these suspensions to find pH levels correspondent to the isoelectric points. Then sonication (200 kHz or 28 kHz) was applied to adjust pH to the isoelectric points and separated particles from solutions by still-standing and spontaneous precipitation. Compared to the conventional methods using filters and chemical agents, the advantage of this sonochemical separation is two-fold. First, it does not require the maintenance of filters. Second, separated particles are easy to use since they are not mixed with pH adjusters and chemical flocculants. Isoelectric zone (ion strength 0.01, concentration 0.001 wt.%) of green tuff, andesite and titanium dioxide suspensions tested in this study were pH 1.1-3.7, 0.8-3.4, 2.7-5.7, respectively. The sonication of green tuff and andesite suspensions at 200 kHz changed the pH to the isoelectric zone despite the pH buffering effect of eluted alkali earth metals, and successfully precipitated the particles. On the contrary, the sonication of these suspensions at 28 kHz failed to adjust pH to the isoelectric zone, and the particles did not precipitate. In addition, the degradation of particles was observed in the SEM photographs of particles sonicated at 28 kHz, whereas no significant change was detected in particles sonicated at 200 kHz. Thus, it is concluded that the optimal frequency is about 200 kHz because its strong chemical effect can easily adjust the pH while its relatively weak physical effect prevents the degradation of particles.