Fractal characteristics of particle size distribution in dynamic flocculation process

This study selected polyaluminum chloride(PAC) coagulant to remove suspended particles in Kaolin suspension solution and used a turbidimeter and particle counter to monitor the flocculation process online and collected the experiment data. The experiments were conducted to study the dynamic distribution characteristics of suspended particles under different hydrodynamic conditions. The results show the self-similarity and scale invariance of particle size distribution. The study further proposed the concept of fractal dimension of particle size distribution and found out that fractal dimension changed in a similar way as residual turbidity did and could excellently indicate the variation of coagulation effect. Therefore, fractal dimension could be adopted to optimize the addition of coagulants and the quality of outflow could be further improved to reduce production costs.