Development of a gas-promoted oil agglomeration process. Technical progress report, April 1, 1995--June 30, 1995

Several scale model mixing systems have been built and are being utilized to study the gas-promoted, oil agglomeration process for cleaning coal. Numerous batch agglomeration tests have been conducted with these systems. During an individual test the progress of agglomeration has been monitored by observing either changes in agitator torque in the case of concentrated particle suspensions or changes in turbidity in the case of dilute suspensions. A mathematical model has been developed for relating the rate of agglomeration of coal particles to the rate of change of turbidity of a dilute particle suspension undergoing agglomeration. The model has been utilized for analyzing and interpreting the results of a number of oil agglomeration tests in which several different system parameters were varied