EP0326382A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
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Polymeric compositions
Assignee: Ciba Specialty Chemicals Water Treatments Ltd
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Filing: 1989-01-26
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2009-01-26
Abstract
Abstract Water absorbent particulate polymers and their uses are described. Friable aggregates may be made by bonding substantially dry polymer particles with an aqueous liquid and drying the aggregates. These aggregates can be broken down to the individual polymer particles upon mixing with an aqueous medium and thus can have the flow properties of relatively coarse particles and the performance properties of relatively fine particles. They may be soluble and used as flocculants or viscosifiers or binders for, for instance, iron ore pelletisation. Alternatively they may be swellable and insoluble, for instance for converting a sticky particulate mass (such as coal fines filter cake) to a crumbly solid. When pellets are formed by compression moulding from a crumbly solid made by mixing water absorbent polymer particles with a sticky mass of inorganic particles (such as a coal fines filter cake) improved properties are obtained when the absorbent polymer particles are introduced in the form of a dispersion in water-immiscible liquid.
Inventors
- 👤 David Farrar
- 👤 John Rodney Field
- 👤 Peter Flesher
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-23 23:33
CPC Classifications
C; C08; C08J; C08J3/00; C08J3/12; B; B01; B01J; B01J20/00; B01J20/22; C02; C02F; C02F1/00; C02F1/52; C02F1/5227; C02F1/5236; C02F1/54; C10; C10L; C10L5/00; C10L5/02; C10L5/06; C10L5/10; C10L5/14; C22; C22B; C22B1/00; C22B1/14; C22B1/24; C22B1/242; C22B1/244; C08J2300/00; C08J2300/14
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 35
Claim 1
Independent Claim
61 words
A particulate polymeric product comprising particles of a water absorbent polymer characterised in that the polymer particles are mainly in the form of friable aggregates that have been made by bonding substantially dry polymer particles with an aqueous liquid and drying the aggregates and that can be broken down substantially to the individual polymer particles by mixing with an aqueous medium.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
61 words
A particulate polymeric product comprising particles of a water absorbent polymer characterised in that the polymer particles are mainly in the form of friable aggregates that have been made by bonding substantially dry polymer particles with an aqueous liquid and drying the aggregates and that can be broken down substantially to the individual polymer particles by mixing with an aqueous medium.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
28 words
A product according to claim 1 in which the polymer particles were formed from water soluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer or monomer blend by gel or reverse phase polymerisation.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
29 words
A product according to claim 2 in which the polymer is formed from 0 to 90% by weight acrylamide and 10 to 100% by weight anionic or cationic monomer.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
30 words
A product according to claim 2 or claim 3 in which the monomer or monomer blend comprises ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic or sulphonic monomer as free acid or water soluble salt.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
24 words
A product according to claim 4 in which the acid is selected from acrylic acid, 2-acrylamido methyl propane sulphonic acid and allyl sulphonic acid.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
28 words
A product according to claim 2 or claim 3 in which the monomer or monomer blend comprises dialkylaminoalkyl (meth) -acrylate or -acrylamide as addition or quaternary ammonium salt.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
32 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which at least 90% by weight of the particles are below 50µm and at least 90% by weight of the aggregates are above 50µm.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
20 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which at least 90% by weight of the aggregates are above 125µm.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
34 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which the aggregates can be broken down by mixing with an aqueous medium that is a wet particulate mass having a water content of below 50%.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
64 words
A product according to claim 7 in which the aggregates can be broken down by mixing with an aqueous medium that is a wet particulate mass having a water content below 50% and the polymer particles are particles of water insoluble, water swellable, polymer that is cross linked and have a gel capacity of at least 25g deionised water per gram polymer dry weight.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
37 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which the aggregates also comprise particles of a disintegrating aid for promoting disintegration of the aggregates upon mixing with the aqueous medium and/or the particles have surface cross linking.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
68 words
A product according to claim 11 in which the water absorbent polymer is a water soluble polymer, the aggregates are broken down upon stirring into a wet particulate mass having a water content below 50% by weight, the water soluble polymer is a binder for forming pellets from the particulate mass, and the disintegrating aid is a water soluble monomeric pelletising aid for promoting pelletisation of the mass.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
44 words
A product according to claim 12 in which the aggregates are formed from 5 to 90% by weight of the water soluble polymer, 95 to 10% by weight of the pelletising aid and 0 to 10% by weight of a water soluble aggregate binder.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
18 words
A product according to claim 12 or claim 13 in which the pelletising aid comprises particulate sodium carbonate.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
50 words
A product according to claim 11 in which the polymeric material is a water soluble polymer that is a viscosifier or flocculant, and the aggregates are broken down by gentle agitation with an aqueous medium that is to be thickened or that includes suspended solids that are to be flocculated.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
41 words
A product according to claim 15 in which the aggregates are formed of about 50 to 98% by weight water soluble polymeric material, about 2 to 50% by weight disintegration aid and 0 to 10% by weight water soluble aggregate binder.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
36 words
A product according to claim 15 or claim 16 in which the water soluble polymer is a cationic polymer having IV above 4dl/g, a particle size below 10µm and an ionic regain of 15 to 70%.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
57 words
A product according to claim 15 in which the water soluble polymer is an ionic polymer having IV at least 4dl/g and the aggregates are formed of 5 to 30% by weight of the polymer, 95 to 70% by weight of water soluble, particulate inorganic coagulant and 0 to 10% by weight of water soluble aggregate binder.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
63 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which the aggregates have been made by a process comprising rendering the substantially dry particles sticky by treatment with an aqueous liquid, aggregating the sticky particles and drying the sticky aggregated product and if necessary comminuting the dried product, and in which substantially no compression step was applied to the sticky particles or sticky product.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim
53 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which the aggregates have been made by, wetting the particles with an aqueous liquid while entrained in air or tumbled along a surface to form wet aggregates that are dried while entrained in air or while being tumbled, and if necessary comminuting the dry product.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
50 words
A product according to any preceding claim in which the surfaces of the particles within the aggregates have surface cross linking or a coating of inert particulate material provided by including cross linking agent or the inert particulate material in the said aqueous liquid used for bonding the polymer particles.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim
67 words
A process of making inorganic pellets from a sticky wet mass of inorganic particles comprising converting the sticky mass to a crumbly solid by mixing into the mass a dispersion of water-immiscible liquid of water-absorbent polymeric particles having a size below 50µm and having a gel capacity of at least 25 grams deionised water per gram polymer dry weight and then moulding the crumbly solid into pellets.
Claim 24
Dependent Claim
67 words
A process of making inorganic pellets from a sticky wet mass of inorganic particles comprising converting the sticky mass to a crumbly solid by mixing into the mass a dispersion of water-immiscible liquid of water-absorbent polymeric particles having a size below 50µm and having a gel capacity of at least 25 grams deionised water per gram polymer dry weight and then moulding the crumbly solid into pellets.
Claim 25
Dependent Claim
19 words
A process according to claim 22 in which the polymer particles are formed from water soluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer.
Claim 26
Dependent Claim
30 words
A process according to claim 22 in which the polymer particles are water insoluble but water swellable and are formed from water soluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer and cross linking agent.
Claim 27
Dependent Claim
29 words
A process according to claim 24 in which the polymer particles are formed from 5 to 100% by weight ionic monomer and 95 to 0% by weight non-ionic monomer.
Claim 28
Dependent Claim
34 words
A process according to claim 25 in which the polymer particles are formed from 30 to 100% by weight acrylic acid or a water soluble salt thereof and 0 to 70% by weight acrylamide.
Claim 29
Dependent Claim
26 words
A process according to any of claims 22 to 26 in which the polymer particles are provided as a dispersion of fines obtained from polymer gel.
Claim 30
Dependent Claim
28 words
A process according to any of claims 22 to 26 in which the polymer particles are provided as a dispersion made by reverse phase polymerisation followed by azeotroping.
Claim 31
Dependent Claim
31 words
A process according to claim 22 in which the polymer particles comprise water soluble anionic polymer particles and water soluble cationic polymer particles in the same dispersion or in different dispersions.
Claim 32
Dependent Claim
34 words
A process according to claim 22 in which the polymer particles are swellable but insoluble and are formed from water soluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer and water insoluble ethylenically unsaturated monomer by oil-in-water emulsion polymerisation.
Claim 33
Dependent Claim
20 words
A process according to any of claims 22 to 30 in which the sticky mass is a coal filter cake.
Claim 34
Dependent Claim
56 words
A process according to any of claims 22 to 31 in which the sticky mass is selected from (a) coal filter cakes and (b) other inorganic particulate masses, and in which, when the mass is a coal filter cake, the dispersion is added to the cake without prior addition of dispersing agent, coagulating agent or flocculant.
Claim 35
Dependent Claim
34 words
A process in which a wet particulate sticky mass is converted to a crumbly or flowable solid by mixing into the mass a particulate polymeric product according to any of claims 1 to 11.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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