Wastewater treatment with acoustic separator

Abstract

Acoustic separation is a filter-free wastewater treatment method based on the forces generated in ultrasonic standing waves. In this report, a batch-system separator based on acoustic separation was demonstrated using a small-scale prototype acoustic separator to remove suspended solids from oil sand process-affected water (OSPW). By applying an acoustic separator to the batch use OSPW treatment, the required settling time, which was the time that the chemical oxygen demand (COD) decreased to the environmental criterion (<200 mg/L), could be shortened from 10 to 1 min. Moreover, for a 10 min settling time, the acoustic separator could reduce the FeCl3 dose as coagulant in OSPW treatment from 500 to 160 mg/L.