Using Avrami equation in the studies on changes in granulometric composition of algal suspension

Abstract

In recent years, it has been recognized that the laser diffraction gives valuable information on particle size distribution for all types of dry inorganic or even organic materials. With use of the laser diffraction and the laser granulometer, this paper presents the changes occurring in the granulometric distribution of algal agglomerates and the changes in values of percentiles 10, 50 and 90%, determined basing on volume distribution. While assessing the granulometric composition, the existence of a proportional relationship between the diameter values corresponding to the percentile of 10, 50 and 90% was observed. What is more, the obtained results give insight into the possibility of application of the general Avrami equation to describe the granulometric composition of the algal suspension through the analogy of crystals formation from saturated solutions. The analysis shows that the model described by the modified Avrami equation adequately matched the regression to the experimental data on the granulometric composition of algal suspensions. The values of the correlation coefficients were close to 1, which proves that the regression model explained nearly all cases by the dependent variable Vi = F(di).