ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Ultrasound-assisted particle size reduction of palygorskite clay

Aditya A. Upasani, Yagna S. Hirpara, and Parag R. Gogate

Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Technology, Matunga, Mumbai, India

E-mail: pr.gogate@ictmumbai.edu.in

Received: 2 June 2023  Accepted: 27 September 2023

Abstract:

Particle size reduction by ultrasound is more favorable than conventional grinding due to its tendency to preserve the material’s crystal structure. For palygorskite clay, the optimization was carried out using response surface methodology for the variables of sonication time, power, duty cycle, and clay loading. A 2FI model was fit to the dimensionless size number to navigate the design space of the model with an r-squared value of 0.9662. We found that the most optimal conditions for the size reduction were 45 min of sonication time, 110 W of sonication power, 90% duty cycle and 0.06 g/mL of clay loading. The loading and duty cycle terms had a positive effect on the particle size reduction, while an increase in power increased the particle size of the clay. The effect of time was found to be dependent on the values of the clay loading as well as the duty cycle. The XRD analysis of palygorskite clay for the untreated and treated samples indicated that ultrasound causes minimal changes to the crystal structure of the clay. The overall outcome of the study suggests that at optimal ultrasound conditions, particle size is reduced to ~ 1/16 times the initial value and the electric power input in the ultrasound generator takes an energy requirement of ~ 0.0124 kWh/g of solids processed for size reduction.

Keywords: Palygorskite; Ultrasound; Particle size reduction; Response surface methodology; Box–behnken design

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-023-03120-8

Chemical Papers 78 (2) 779–792 (2024)