동전기에 의한 점토슬러리의 침강 촉진에 관한 연구

Settling behaviour of clay slurries enhanced by using electrokinetics

A completion of settling process takes a lot of time for dredged materials of high moisture content, such as contaminated sludge, in landfill site. In general, additives (e.g. flocculants) are used for reducing settling time of such colloidal material, which results in the increase of sludge volume, and hence much space is required in landfill site. This study is to suggest alternative method in order to enhance the settling process of cohesive clayey soils. A number of gravitational sedimentation tests as well as electrokinetic experiments were conducted to investigate the variation of initial moisture content on the settling behaviour of clay slurry. Surface settlement, electric current and local voltage gradient were monitored during the experiment, and moisture content and soil pH were measured after the experiment. From the results, the application of electrokinetics was found to be effective in volume reduction (i.e. increase of settling velocity and decrease of final moisture content) by comparison with gravitational settling process.