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What is a Flocculating Agent?

Flocculating agents or flocculants are the chemicals or substances that facilitate flocculation or floccing up of suspended solids in liquid, typically associated with wastewater. The resulting floc or wooly mass itself is called flocculent with an “e” however sometimes the terms are used interchangeably for flocculant with an “a”. “Floc” is the common name for the clumped up waste.

There are many types of flocculants ( flocculents) including flocculant agents and flocculant chemicals. You can also use various flocculant aids such as pH adjustment.
Some common flocculants include:

* alum flocculant
* anionic flocculant
* cationic flocculant
* chitosan flocculant
* polyacrylamide flocculant
* polymer flocculant
* nalco flocculant

What’s the difference between Coagulants and Flocculants?

Coagulants and flocculants are similar, however, a coagulant aids coagulation, not flocculation. The difference is subtle but distinct. Coagulation is more of a thickener, flocculation forms distinct clumps that settle or float.

So, again, coagulation and flocculation are essentially the same type of process, thickening or clumping. Coagulation is more of a thickening process, whereas flocculation is a clumping together of substances or encapsulation of substances that form flocculent and in wastewater treatment hopefully precipitate out of solution.

Flocculants and coagulants used as wastewater flocculants, and in flocculant water treatment, are designed to do one thing, remove suspended solids from water and wastewater and or facilitate solids removal and subsequent dewatering.

Flocculants, or flocculating agents, are chemicals or compounds that cause flocculation by making suspended particles in liquids clump together forming a wooly lump or floc. Because they are woolly in appearance these clumps are called floc.

Using flocculants that do this so well that many processes such as pretreatment and coagulants are eliminated in your industrial wastewater treatment not only can improve your bottom line but can reduce water loss and create a superior environmentally compliant waste product or leftover solids. This means lower disposal costs and better compliance, better for everyone.
What are the best Flocculating Agent Flocculants?

Flocculants that are based on natural products utilize both positive and negative charges in the flocculant to bind to contaminates in your wastewater. This causes the contaminants to not only floc up but also become encapsulated in the flocculant, effectively making the treated sludge or solids environmentally benign to a large degree, rendering environmental compliance that much easier. Again, much lower disposal cost will result due to less water weight, and more importantly much safer solid waste is produced.

Proper flocculation is a win for industry and the environment. The bottom line: Great flocculants make your wastewater treatment easier. Easier means less costly and more efficient, more reusable water, better environmental compliance, lower disposal costs, all leading to higher profits for you with social responsibility to boot.
Industrial Ecology and Flocculating Agents

Now more than ever, industrial ecology is finding its way into industry, benefiting everyone, everywhere, for a sustainable society.

Let’s take a fresh look at a couple of tired old sayings you’ve probably heard a million times, and examine what they mean when comes to raising environmental awareness and encouraging everyday citizens to do their part to preserve the planet for future generations.

Here’s the first: “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” In our world, this classic dilemma could be rephrased as “Which comes first, environmental awareness or environmental action?” You could be forgiven for answering that environmental awareness comes first, because that it is how it appears to the untrained eye.

But social and behavior research often finds otherwise  — small actions lead to big attitude changes, and then on to the big behavior changes. In his classic book, “Fostering Sustainable Behavior,” social marketing guru Doug McKenzie Mohr cites a number of cases where the simplest possible behavior — such as holding a flashlight for an energy auditor — becomes the first step in a journey that leads to major energy conservation efforts around the house.

I like to tell my clients that the smallest and easiest of environmental actions — replacing an incandescent lightbulb, making a $30 donation, signing an electronic petition — matter. They matter a lot if you see them as a kind of “gateway drug” for the person who does them. If you can make that person aware of how good it feels to make a little difference, some will come back looking for a bigger fix. Next time around, they might insulate their attic, make a large donation, or speak up for the environmental at a public hearing.

Here’s the second old saying, from the world of physics: “A body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion.” In the world of behavior change psychology, that might be rephrased this way: “a body that pays lip service to the environment will probably keep doing that, but a body that takes a first step for the environment is likely to take a second.”

When we set out to just raise environmental awareness, what we often end up producing is lip service, instead. If you want that awareness to lead to some action, it helps a lot to define that action and aim for that directly.

What both of these reinterpretations have in common, is that they point to the importance of beginning with behavior for your environmental communications. Set a goal of motivating your audience to take some small action, and follow up afterwards to lavish your audience with praise and gratitude — and suggest the next, more meaningful action they can take.