ABSTRACT
In the chemical and biochemical industries, downstream processing deals with different unit processes. It is crucial for the biochemical industry because the cost of chemicals depends on the purity of products. It has been observed that the downstream processing cost is inversely proportional to the concentration of products. Pretreatment is required to facilitate separation processes. For example, in both chemical and biochemical industries, activated charcoal (AC) is used for the decoloration of liquid. AC has bleaching properties. This depends on the surface area of particles. Alum is a common coagulation compound used in the chemical and biochemical industries. Chemically, alum is represented as aluminum potassium sulfate, K2SO4•Al2(SO4)3•24H2O. Fine particulates are agglomerated to clump together into a floc, which is known as the flocculation process. In other words, the flocculation process can be described as one where the negatively charged particulates accumulate around the positively charged flocculent.
