| The Carver Greenfield process is a method of cleaning and drying sludge, which contains organic materials. The process yields clean dry solids, water and isolated organic materials. The heart of this technology is of solvent extraction and low-pressure evaporation, which clean and dewater the sludge. The sludge is composed of water, solids and organic materials. A carrier oil was used as the extracting solvent as well as a medium to fluidize the sludge. The difficulty in analyzing the three-phase dewatering process thermodynamically results from the non-ideal behavior of the solution associated with the adsorption of water onto solids. The objective of this thesis was to develop and analyze an algorithm that can account for this non-ideal behavior and simulate the three-phase dewatering section of the Carver Greenfield process. The three phases were the solid-water phase, the organics-carrier oil phase and the vapor phase. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
