Anionic Polyacrylamide (APAM): Industrial Wastewater Management

Industrial wastewater containing suspended organic solids pose a threat to the aquatic biota when discharged untreated in surrounding water bodies. The issue has become one of dire concern with increasing variation in nature and type of solids associated with the effluent. One promising method to treat such wastewater conveniently is using flocculants to remove the suspended solids before discharging the water. An ideal choice for this is using polymer based flocculants that are cost friendly and easy to use over a wide range of suspended solids.

Flocculation is the process by which individual particles of a suspension aggregate. They consist of anionic, cationic and nonionic polymers of varying molecular weight. They are used to increase the efficiency of settling, clarification, filtration and centrifugation operations. They adsorb on particles and cause destabilization by bridging or charge neutralization. Most common polymer used in water treatment is made from Polyacrylamide. Polymers are given anionic character by copolymerizing acrylamide with acrylic acid.

Anionic PAM series products are polymer used in water treatment that are water soluble linear chained synthesized polymers that are insoluble in other common organic solvents. They have valuable properties like flocculation, thickening, shear properties, drag-reduction and dispersibility. Thus they are widely used in environmental protection practices for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing suspended matter; mostly coarse with high concentration of positively charged particles under neutral or alkaline pH conditions.

Synthetic polymeric flocculants like APAM have become very popular in industrial effluent treatment owing to their natural inertness to pH changes, high efficiency even with low dosage, and easy handling. They are the widespread choice as waste water treatment chemicals for industries such as Iron & Steel, Electroplate factory, Metallurgical workshops, coal washing etc.

Features: Criteria Benefit/Activity Application Organic-based wastewater Treatment ability Suspended and colloid particles Treatment Process Simpler, no pH adjustment needed Sludge generation Less sludge produced, may contain monomer residue Treatment cost Less expensive Mechanism Charge neutralization and concurrent bridging Removal efficiency TSS: 100% removal

COD: 55% removal BOD5: 23% removal

APAM is most commonly available as Polyacrylamide powder and has been tested to show no toxicity to even sensitive aquatic species even at much higher concentrations than used in industry thus ensuring zero environmental setbacks from tail-end runoffs into natural water bodies.

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