Flocculation of Clay Suspensions Using Copolymers Based on Acrylamide and Biopolymer

In this work, we have synthesized new copolymers by modification ofcarboxymethylcellulose (CMC) with acrylamide and / or 4-vinylpyridine. These copolymers have been characterized by different methods namely, Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (ATG) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). They were used as flocculants for the treatment of water suspensions containing bentonite and kaolin particles. Moreover, the effects of several factors, such as the pH, floculants concentration, suspensions concentration, and settling time, were investigated. The obtained results showed that the presence of 4-vinylpyridine (4VP) in the copolymer has a positive effect on the efficiency of turbidity elimination. It is worth indicating that for a settling time of 10 min, and for the CMC-AM-4VP copolymer, this efficiency reached the value of 89% and 75% for bentonite and Kaolin suspensions respectively.