Flocculation can be used in turbulent environments resulting in floc breakage due to shearing. The degree of re-flocculation relates directly to product quality and process efficiency. This study aimed at looking for alternatives to improve the re-flocculation ability of aggregates when polyelectrolytes (PEL) are used as flocculation agents. Moreover, because branched PEL have proved previously to lead to high flocculation efficiencies, the work presented focus on the improvement of the re-flocculation ability of branched PEL. Thus, a selection of branched polymers were used primarily as flocculation aid and after flocs break up a linear polymer was added to the system in order to improve re-flocculation. Different mixtures were tested with the objective to try to induce, during re-flocculation, complementary flocculation mechanisms, favoring the patching mechanism. Re-flocculation improved significantly with this strategy. Laser Diffraction Spectroscopy was used to monitor the flocculation and re-flocculation processes supplying information about the floc size and structure. Since inorganic materials, namely bentonite, have been widely used to improve the re-flocculation capacity of polyelectrolytes, the results of using dual polyelectrolyte systems were compared with the effect of adding bentonite to the system.
Keywords: dual polyelectrolytes; flocculation; laser diffraction spectroscopy; papermaking; re-flocculation.