Design of lignin-based flocculants and dispersants for various aqueous systems

分散剂和絮凝剂是水溶性化学品，在世界各地都有工业应用。分散剂具有广泛的工业用途，主要用于降低悬浮液和溶液体系的粘度。絮凝剂广泛用于废水处理以去除悬浮颗粒和溶解的有机/无机化学品。然而，可商购的分散剂和絮凝剂主要是油基的、昂贵的、无效的、对环境不友好的和不可生物降解的。出于这些原因，化学工业中开发更环保、更高效的木质素基分散剂/絮凝剂的动力很大。 木质素具有三维结构，具有几个脂肪族和芳香族基团连接，使其适合于生产分散剂和絮凝剂。由于其化学结构，木质素可以被定制为具有广泛的电荷密度和分子量，从而可以设计具有一系列不同性质的分散剂和絮凝剂，用于纺织，采矿和油砂工业以及废水处理系统中的潜在应用。 目前，大多数硫酸盐木质素作为低级能源燃烧。木质素的价值被认为是一个可行的选择，使制浆工业更有利可图的利用已经获得的木质素资源。Fatehi博士的研究项目在加拿大是独一无二的，它提供了一种环保且具有工业吸引力的方法，用于从木质素中生产增值的水溶性产品，如分散剂和絮凝剂。 该研究计划的目标是：1）研究生产木质素基分散剂和絮凝剂的新途径，2）研究木质素聚合的物理/流变学方面，以及3）确定木质素基分散剂和絮凝剂的性质与其在各种模拟模型和工业生产的溶液和悬浮液系统中的性能之间的相关性。该计划的潜在影响将是开发用于各种胶体系统的木质素分散剂和絮凝剂的设计工艺。考虑到扩大硫酸盐木质素使用的紧迫性（从而增加硫酸盐纸浆米尔斯厂的收入）以及在采矿和油砂工业中使用更环保的分散剂和絮凝剂的需求，预计新设计的工艺将对将使用开发的技术的硫酸盐纸浆米尔斯厂产生极大的兴趣。拟议研究的结果将有可能支持硫酸盐制浆、采矿和油砂工业，这将提高加拿大在全球商品市场的竞争力，并为农村社区带来稳定的就业机会和更大的繁荣。

Dispersants and flocculants are water-soluble chemicals with industrial applications worldwide. Dispersants have a wide range of industrial uses, mainly to reduce viscosity of suspension and solution systems. Flocculants are widely used in wastewater treatments to remove suspended particles and dissolved organic/inorganic chemicals. However, commercially available dispersants and flocculants are mainly oil-based, expensive, ineffective, environmentally unfriendly and non-biodegradable. For these reasons, the incentives for developing greener and more efficient lignin-based dispersants/flocculants are high in the chemical industry. Lignin has a three-dimensional structure with several aliphatic and aromatic group attachments, making it amenable for producing dispersants and flocculants. Because of its chemical structure, lignin can be tailored to have a wide range of charge densities and molecular weights, making it possible to design dispersants and flocculants with a range of different properties for potential applications in the textile, mining, and oil-sand industries and wastewater treatment systems. The majority of kraft lignin is currently combusted as a low-grade energy source. Lignin valorization has been considered a feasible option to make the pulping industry more profitable by using already accessible lignin resources. Dr. Fatehi's research program is unique in Canada and offers an environmentally friendly and industrially attractive approach for producing value-added water-soluble products such as dispersants and flocculants from lignin. The objectives of this research program are to: 1) investigate new pathways to produce lignin-based dispersants and flocculants, 2) investigate physical/rheological aspects of lignin polymerization, and 3) identify the correlations between the properties of lignin-based dispersants and flocculants and their performance in various simulated models and industrially-produced solution and suspension systems. The potential impact of this program will be the development of processes for designing lignin-based dispersants and flocculants for various colloidal systems. Considering the urgency for expanding the use of kraft lignin (and thus increasing the revenues of kraft pulp mills) and the demand for using more environmentally friendly dispersants and flocculants in the mining and oil-sand industries, it is expected that newly designed processes will be of great interest to kraft pulp mills who will use the developed technologies. The results of the proposed research will have the potential to support the kraft pulping, mining and oil-sand industries, which will increase Canada's competitiveness in the global commodities market and bring stable jobs and greater prosperity to rural communities.