Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society ISSN:2508-2876(Print) 2287-9528(Online) 한국지반신소재학회 논문집

As sediment contamination problems have recently been raised in Korea, the need for technologies to remove contaminants in sediments has increased. Contaminated sediments in Korea has been annually dredged and treated using processes of coagulation/flocculation, sedimentation on barges, dewatered and dried at prepared site, and then disposed at a landfill site, which is very costly, and only a limited landfill space available in Korea. Contaminants in media containing a high percentage of silt and clay sized particles, typically, are strongly adsorbed on the particles and difficult to remove. Particle separation processes that separate the fine clay and silt particles from the coarser sand and gravel and concentrate the contaminants into a smaller volume of sediment that can be further treated of disposed of, are very effective in the post step processes. In this study are to test the feasibility of treating dredged sediments using a hydrocyclone process, and to estimate design parameters for a pilot scale test. A hydrocyclone was operated to separate larger particles from the sediments. It was found that the particle separation was greatly affected by the solid contents and inlet pressure in the hydrocyclone.