A method of processing thin stillage in an ethanol refining operation is provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises treating stillage with an inverse emulsion comprising at least one anionic flocculant and an emulsifying agent selected from a sorbitan ester of a fatty acid, an ethoxylated sorbitan ester of a fatty acid, and combinations thereof, thereby forming treated stillage; clarifying the treated stillage via at least one of dissolved air flotation and induced air flotation, thereby forming clarified thin stillage and a float layer comprising oil and solids; separating the oil from the solids of the float layer; and recovering the oil.

The present invention discloses an oil-contained wastewater treatment apparatus applying the integrative physical methods. The wastewater treatment system of the invention may include a main tank, where the upper part is a rectangular body and the lower part is designed to a multi-bucket bottom structure. Two oil collection boxes are arranged to both outside ends of tank. A mud discharging outlet is attached to the bottom of the tank. Meanwhile, both of a water outlet and an electric polarizer are localized at the end face of the effluent on the tank. A power supply for the electro-adsorber is fixed to the inlet end on the top face of the tank. Divided by upper and lower deflectors, the inside of the tank is divided to three processing units, i.e., sludge-water separation unit, degradation-coalescence treatment unit, and sedimentation-electric polarization unit. Vortex centripetal gas flotation is applied to remove oil. Electro-adsorption induces the micelle clustering to achieve the decolorization. The electric polarization functions as anti-scaling, descaling, sterilization, and corrosion inhibition. Moreover, the referred physical treatment can be fulfilled in virtue of centrifugal force, buoyancy, gravity, adsorption force, coalescence force, inertia, shifting, and modification. Through the application of the system, the oil-contained wastewater can be treated environmentally friendly, safe and pollution-free. Besides the above advantages, high removal efficiency can make the apparatus and method a widely used approach on the oil-contained wastewater treatment.

In a method for separating low density particles from feed slurries, a bubbly mixture is formed in a downcomer and issues into a mid region in a chamber. An inverted reflux classifier is formed by parallel inclined plates below the mid region allowing for efficient separation of low density particles which rise up to form a densely packed foam in the top of the chamber, and denser particles which fall downwardly to an outlet.

In a method and apparatus for separating low density particles from feed slurries, a bubbly mixture is formed in a downcomer and issues into a mid region in a chamber. An inverted reflux classifier is formed by parallel inclined plates below the mid region allowing for efficient separation of low density particles which rise up to form a densely packed foam in the top of the chamber, and denser particles which fall downwardly to an outlet.

Water contaminated with antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, microorganisms and other organic material stripped of these contaminating products with a specialized gas sparged hydrocyclone apparatus using an ozone containing gas as the stripping gas. The stripping gas contains 50-98 volume percent ozone, and the contaminated water is exposed to UV light prior to introduction into the sparger.

A flotation tank has an input to receive a slurry from a pipeline section. The slurry contains finer mineral particles and coarser mineral particles. The pipeline section has one or more loops or coiled sections arranged to perform partial centrifugal separation on the finer and coarser mineral particles. As the mineral particles are moved tangentially into the lower part of the flotation tank, the coarser mineral particles tend to be near the tank wall while the finer mineral particles tend to move into the central part of the tank. Air bubbles or lightweight synthetic bubbles are used to collect and lift the finer mineral particles to the upper part of the tank. The coarser mineral particles are recovered by using collection surfaces coated with a hydrophobic material.

A system and method for processing interface emulsion, water, and solids contained within a separator vessel that comprises the steps of continually extracting those components from the vessel and then passing them through a gas flotation cell. The cell, which is preferably a vertical induced gas flotation cell, separates the oil and water contained in the interface emulsion and discharges recovered oil from an upper portion of the cell and treated water from a bottom portion of the cell. The recovered oil and treated water may be further processed and recycled to the vessel or sent elsewhere. The treated water may also be recycled to the cell or sent to a process sewer. Fuel gas residing in an upper portion of the cell may be cooled and passed through a splitter. All the steps of occur in a closed system with no air emissions.

A method for processing bitumen froth comprised of bitumen, water containing chlorides and solids is provided for producing a final diluted bitumen product having reduced chlorides. In particular, fine water droplets containing chlorides that are present in raw diluted bitumen are captured by washing the raw diluted bitumen with low salinity water to produce the final diluted bitumen product having reduced chlorides.

Disclosed herein are methods and compositions for increasing the alumina content of a bauxite ore prior to alumina extraction by an extractive process, such as the Bayer process. By adding a beneficiation agent to an aqueous ore slurry, then applying a gravitational force to separate, or partition, the slurry into a beneficiary and a gangue, a number of quantifiable benefits are observed. These include increased alumina content and reduced silica content in the beneficiary solids as compared to the starting ore. These benefits are in excess of those observed by pre-extraction gravitational separation of ore slurries without the addition of a beneficiation agent. Beneficiation agents include DADMAC polymers, and combinations of DADMAC polymers with dextrans. The beneficiary is collected and applied to an extractive process, such as the Bayer process.

A separation tank for separating a contaminant from a multiple-phase fluid stream has a vessel formed by a top wall, a bottom wall, and a sidewall. The vessel has a plurality of nested and fluidly connected chambers therein. A fluid inlet is in fluid communication with the outermost chamber of the vessel for introducing the multiple-phase fluid stream thereinto. A fluid outlet is in fluid communication with the innermost chamber of the vessel for discharging a contaminant-removed fluid stream out of the vessel. At least one chamber of the vessel has one or more gas inlets at a lower portion thereof for injecting gas bubbles into the chamber for facilitating contaminant removal. In operation, the fluid stream travels from the fluid inlet through the plurality of chambers to the fluid outlet along an elongated helical spiral flow path.