Polymer Flocculant Sediment Floc Fractal Theory

Fractal theory is defined as an emerging boundary Science that describes a randomly complex system.In the last decades,fractal theory has been successfully applied in many areas of research, covering the mechanics,physics,chemistry,biological sciences,material sciences,earth sciences, engineering,and even the social sciences and many other disciplines.With the aid of the fractal geometry theory,it is possible to make further understanding of the issue,which has not been clarified by the traditional theory.Today,such concepts as scale invariance,self-similarity,self-affinity and multi-fractal have been used to deeply perceive some phenomena such as the growth phenomenon, turbulence,iterative functions,gel-based aggregation,the formation of biological patterns,the inhomogeneous material structure and complex oil gas pool and so on.Fractal has already gone beyond the traditional boundaries of disciplines,and been the link of different subject.It is the geometric self-similarity concept that breaks the shackles of the Euclidean geometry and is an impact on the traditional science on the basis of Euclidean geometry and determinism.Fractal is the important component of new science developing in the second half of the last century,is one of the most significant discoveries ever since relativity and quantum mechanics,and is the powerful tool for exploiting of the complexity.Polymer chain generally consists of a large number of repeat units.Due to the difference between polymerization and the nature of polymer and its stochastic characteristics,polymer material shows the specific distribution closely related to their formation mechanism.Therefore,the study of the fractal, that is,the corresponding physical or chemical process of the formation of the fractal,the relationship of the micro-and macro state of the polymer,the nature of materials fractal dimension,and so on,then we can reveal the unique characteristics of polymer materials more profoundly,which is of great significance.In water supply and wastewater treatment systems,floc size,shape,structure,play an important role on the regulation of particle transport and removal of pollutants.Therefore whether a good floc structure can be formed,to a large extent,affects the operation of the consequent processes,and ultimately the water quality and cost.Many test phenomena and studies of electron microscope have shown that the surface and internal of floc has highly irregular nature and self-similar structure and the nature of scale invariance,which suggests that the structure and formation process of floc has fractal characteristics.The concept of fractal dimension can be used to describe the irregular degree in the fortuitous floc to give good description and analysis of floc formation and "growth.".The parameters of properties of floc-characterization includes the density,porosity,particle size distribution,floc strength,settling velocity and so on.This paper gives an introduction to the basic content of fractal theory and the current polymer materials research and a discussion to fractal characteristics in the sand floc under polymer flocculating agent.