In this report, modifications and experimental tests with an early stage test rig intended for producing a commercial solution to fractionating pyrolysis oil are described. The idea is to use centrifugal force to separate the formed aerosols from condensible gases with a lower volatility. A stacked disc centrifuge prototype built to work at high temperature was used. The experiment was done with a single component, 1-Methylnaphtalene (1-MN) to evaluate the functionality of the test rig. No separation was achieved, concluding that further work need to be done at different operating parameters with 1-Methylnaphtalene prior to including more components. The reason for the negative separation result is probably due to that the saturation ratio was to low resulting in that no aerosol was formed during the experiments. Further work includes improving the stability of the inlet stream to the centrifuge. Perform more experiments with other process parameters, recommendation is to decreasing the temperature at the inlet to the centrifuge to increase the saturation ratio. It is also suggested that an optical in situ measuring devise is added to the test rig to facilitate operation.

Les granites à métaux rares ont une faible valeur économique mais sont souvent exploités pour leurs minéraux industriels. L’objectif de ce travail est d’évaluer la potentialité de certains résidus issus de la production de kaolin de St Austell (Angleterre) pour la récupération de métaux critiques (CRMs) comme les Terre Rares légères (LREE), le niobium (Nb), le tungstène (W) et l’étain (Sn) via le développement d’un procédé de récupération des CRMs. L’étude des résidus miniers montre que les CRM sont concentrés dans le résidu micacé avec des teneurs en LREE allant jusqu’à 170 ppm avec 40 à 60% des CRMs distribués dans ce résidu. Un procédé de traitement de ce résidu a été développé incluant des étapes de concentration par gravité et flottation. Les teneurs en LREE permettent la récupération d’environ 60% des LREE avec des teneurs de 1,6 % et 0,5% LREE respectivement dans le concentré de gravité et flottation / Rare metals granites have always been considered of poor economic value due to their low metal grades but, when altered, they are often exploited for their industrial minerals. This work address the recovery of critical metals (CRMs) including Light Rare Earth Elements (LREE) and rare metals (Sn, Nb, W) from St Austell (UK) kaolin residues though the development of a beneficiation process. Results shows that CRMs are pre-concentrated in the micaceous residue stream with LREE grades of 170 ppm, which account from 40% to 60% of the mass of CRM entering the plant. Analysis of this residue streams shows a high variability of CRM grades and suggest a cut-off grades for some of them. A combined gravity/flotation process have been developed for this residue which allow to recover up to 60% LREE with LREE grade of 1.6 to 0.5% for the gravity and flotation concentrate respectively

During recent decades metallic nanoparticles have been found very interesting due to their unique characteristics which make them suitable for different applications. In this research, for the very first time, we tried to perform selective surface photo activation chemistry on the targeted facets of nanoparticles while they are in suspension. This technique enabled us to form desired assemblies of nanoparticles. We focused on elongated shaped gold nanorod due to its unique surface plasmon resonance and probable biomedical applications. In this research we formed a dumbbell shape assembly of nanoparticles in suspension. A probable application for these assemblies can be in vivo imaging. Initially, we reproduced gold nanorods using existing techniques in prior papers and optimized them according to our research needs. A low rpm centrifugal separation technique was developed to efficiently separate synthesized gold nanorods from other shapes. Several characterization techniques were utilized to characterize nanoparticles at each step including UV-absorbance, zeta potential, and dynamic light scattering. Different generations of oligomers were synthesized to be used as gold nanorods coating, and each coating was tested and characterized using appropriate techniques. Our two-step coating replacement method using one of these photocleavable oligomers enabled us to achieve, for the very first time, selective UV photo activation of gold nanorod tips. The photo activated tips were then exposed to oppositely charged gold nanospheres to form dumbbell shape assemblies of gold nanorods and nanospheres. Furthermore, dumbbell shape assembly of nanoparticles was investigated and characterized. / Master of Science