WATER TREATMENT: SNF’S CORE ACTIVITY
SNF has maintained a strong position in the water treatment sector for decades. To meet the needs of this ever-growing market, we have developed a product range of more than 1,100 organic coagulants and flocculants. SNF’s range of products covers all global market requirements and has been approved by numerous governmental authorities for use within the scope of established standards.
With more than 50 regional subsidiaries, SNF’s technical teams are able to offer services on a global scale. In combination with regional distributors and resellers, SNF is able to provide polymers that are most suited to our clients’ needs and provide local follow-up and support in the following industries:
- Automotive
- Food
- Water treatment (potable, industrial boiler/cooling)
- Wastewater treatment (municipal, industrial)
- Paper
- Agriculture
- Construction
- Textiles
- Mining and mineral processing
- Oil & Gas
- Erosion Control
Product Categories
FLOCCULANTS
SNF offers anionic, nonionic, and cationic flocculants in dry powder, liquid emulsion, and liquid solution forms that are derived from different methods of polymerization.
- Dry Powders: Monomers are polymerized in gel form. The gel obtained is then ground and dried. The main advantage of these products is the 100% activity.
- Liquid Emulsions: Monomers are emulsified in a solvent and then polymerized. At the end of polymerization, a surfactant is added (also called invertor or breaker) that makes the emulsion polymer readily dilutable in water. The main advantages of these products are their liquid form (ease of use) and increased performance on certain substrates due to their possible variations in specific molecular structure.
- Liquid Solutions: Monomers are polymerized at low concentration in aqueous solution. The main advantage with these products is the simplicity of use.
COAGULANTS
SNF supplies cationic, organic coagulants. Organic coagulants are usually in liquid form. Concentrations in activity range between 8 and 70%, with the most common concentrations of activity between 40 and 50%.
DISPERSANTS
SNF also offers a range of specialty polycarboxylates available as dispersants that reduce bulk viscosity of high-solid slurries and to maintain stability of finely-divided particle dispersion. This is done by enhancing charge repulsion. Some of the uses for SNF dispersants include:
- Treatment of residues and liquid effluents
- Pigment suspensions
- Drilling fluids (Oil & Gas production)
- Ore-in-Water slurries (iron, gold, etc.)
- Water-based paints
- High-performance ceramics
SCALE INHIBITORS
The formation of inorganic scales (e.g., CaCO3, CaSO4, BaSO4, etc…), is a frequent problem with water used in a variety of applications such as oil and gas, boilers, cooling towers, mining, and mineral processing. SNF provides chemicals classified as antiscalants, which inhibit scale formation generally through three separate mechanisms:
- Threshold Inhibition – by interfering with the growth of scale crystals. In this case, the antiscalant dosage is far below the normal stoichiometric amount ( i.e., a few parts per million can stabilize hundreds or thousands of times as many scale-forming ions).
- Dispersion – by dispersing particles. It prevents scale-forming particle from agglomerating and forming larger adherent particles.
- Chelation —by complexing inorganic ions stoichiometrically.
HEAVY METAL PRECIPITANTS
SNF understands that reduction in heavy metals is an important part of wastewater treatment in many municipal and industrial processes. SNF has developed and produced a line of products which are chelating agents designed and formulated to enhance the removal of heavy metals from waste streams via precipitation.