Hydrocyclone-Separation Technologies for Resource Recovery and Reuse

Hydrocyclone has a history of about 129 years. It has been used in various industries including mineral, chemical, coal, petroleum, papermaking, environmental protection, soil remediation, waste management, agriculture, aquaculture, food, biotechnology, nanotechnology, material science technology, and thermal energy due to its high separation efficiency, small cut size, small split ratio, no moving components, and low total static pressure drop. To further expand its application range in the field of resource recovery and reuse, this chapter first simply introduces the working principle of hydrocyclones, characteristic of fluid flow in hydrocyclones, parameters evaluating performance of hydrocyclones, and the applications of hydrocyclones in resource recovery and reuse. Then this chapter comprehensively reviews the hydrocyclone-separation technologies developed by geometric parameters, operating parameters, and operating conditions, the challenges and perspectives. It is hoped that this chapter will significantly improve the recovery-and-reuse effectiveness of various solids, liquids, gases, and energy by using hydrocyclone-separation technologies.