Comparative studies on the flocculation characteristics of polyacrylamide grafted guar gum and hydroxypropyl guar gum

The synthesis of two polysaccharide‐based graft copolymers with acrylamide, guar gum grafted polyacrylamide (GG‐g‐PAM) and hydroxypropyl guar gum grafted polyacrylamide (HPG‐g‐PAM) is described. The graft copolymers have been characterized by viscometry, infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis. The flocculation characteristics of the graft copolymers have been studied in kaolin, iron ore, and silica suspensions. For the base polysaccharides guar gum (GG) and hydroxypropyl guar gum (HPG), it is observed that GG exhibits better performance than HPG in all three suspensions. For the graft copolymers, HPG‐g‐PAM shows better performance than GG‐g‐PAM. The flocculation characteristics of the best performing graft copolymer (HPG‐g‐PAM) are compared with various commercially available flocculants in the three suspensions mentioned above. © 2001 Society of Chemical Industry