A novel acrylamide-free flocculant and its application for sludge dewatering

An alternative to acrylamide-based flocculants is of both technical and application interest, due to the carcinogen concern of acrylamide (AM) monomer. A new family of anionic or cationic flocculants starting from methyl acrylate (MA) has been developed via emulsion polymerization, with desirable charge densities. High molecular weight copolymers were achieved with intrinsic viscosity of products as high as 12.98 dl/g for anionic flocculant and 10.74 dl/g for cationic flocculant. The new flocculants show comparable performance in clay settling test, real water jar test, and sludge dewatering, when compared to AM-based commercial product in the real wastewater treatment application.188