Floaters

Flotation is the operation by means of which suspended solids or emulsions are separated from the fluid, either leveraging their low specific weight or making them float by injecting a gas current. In both cases the Archimedes principle for the bodies immersed in fluids is leveraged. This process can be applied in the depuration of discharges containing suspended solid, oils and greases, fibers and other substances with specific weight lower on near the specific weight of water, which consequently are difficult or impossible to settle. The sludge created on the surface is separated by means of specific conveyors. The floater is a hydrodynamic system divided into several compartments: in the first compartment, thanks to the specific rest conditions, it is possible to remove the roughest “floating” materials from waste materials by simple stratification; in the second compartment the waste materials are intimately mixed with water saturated with air, so that the flakes and the particles are incorporated into a cloud of air microbubbles easing separation by flotation; in the third compartment waste materials cross a specific package in reticular plastic material which, thanks to flow speed decrease and to “coalescence”, enables as well the smallest and lightest floating substances to be separated from waste materials; the fourth and last compartment is again a rest compartment with siphoned output as further safety. The sludge will be collected in a specific container and/or sent to a sludge drying system (filtering bags or filterpress). The system can be completed with neutralization, coagulation, denaturizing and/or flocculation systems according to the specific needs.