FLOPAM FO 4125 Equivalent: SH and SSH Cationic PAM Selection

The factual basis for this page is a single historical document: SNF SAS Catalogue 2007 Poudres. FLOPAM FO 4125 appears in it twice. Page 5, in the table headed cationic polyacrylamides in powder form of very high molecular weight, prints FO 4125 SSH at Very Low charge density and Very-high molecular weight, approximate bulk density 0.80, Brookfield 240 cps at 5 g/L, 90 cps at 2.5 g/L and 30 cps at 1 g/L, and 150 minutes dissolution in DI water at 5 g/L and 25°C. Page 7, in the high-molecular-weight table, prints FO 4125 SH at Very Low charge density and High molecular weight, approximate bulk density 0.80, Brookfield 150/50/20 cps on the same three concentrations, and 120 minutes dissolution under the same stated conditions.

That is the whole of what we hold on these two grades. The catalogue is from 2007 and its own footnotes describe the values as average figures given as an indication, explicitly not a specification. It tells us nothing about current SNF products, specifications or availability, and we make no claim on those points. Anything on this page beyond those two rows and our own published parameters is written as an open item rather than a conclusion.

The two rows share a charge descriptor and differ on everything that governs chain length. SSH sits in the very-high-molecular-weight table; SH sits in the high-molecular-weight table. The solution viscosity follows: 240 cps against 150 cps at 5 g/L, 90 against 50 at 2.5 g/L, 30 against 20 at 1 g/L. So does the published dissolution time, 150 minutes against 120 minutes under the same stated test conditions.

Practically, that difference is the reason we ask for the complete label. A longer-chain grade and a shorter-chain grade of the same charge do not behave the same way through a make-up rig, a transfer pump or a shear-heavy dosing line, and the make-up time is the first thing an operator notices. If an enquiry arrives as FO 4125 with no suffix, we cannot tell which of the two rows describes the product in your silo, and we would rather ask for a bag-label photograph than guess and quote against the wrong lane.

Our current public grade master describes cationic powders by qualitative charge and molecular-weight bands. Its lowest charge band is Low, carried by C8008, which we publish at Medium molecular weight. There is no band named Very Low anywhere in that master, and that is the descriptor on both FO 4125 rows.

Two gaps therefore exist at once, and both belong at the top of the page rather than in a footnote. On charge, C8008 is the nearest grade we publish, not a match to Very Low. On molecular weight, C8008’s Medium band sits below the High band printed for SH and further below the Very-high band printed for SSH. We are not going to close either gap by asserting a correspondence between the two scales: the band boundaries were set by different companies for their own ranges, with no shared reference point and no published mapping, so ranking one against the other would be an inference presented as a specification.

None of that stops the commercial side. We supply cationic polyacrylamide powder, we can quote against a confirmed FO 4125 SH or FO 4125 SSH label, and we can arrange review of the applicable product documents and discuss sample options as soon as you send the grade string, quantity and destination. What the gaps change is the honest description of the route: this is selection and screening, and the screening result on your own material is what decides whether the changeover goes ahead.

Prepare our candidate at 1–3 g/L, maximum 5 g/L, with dissolution within 60 minutes at working concentration. Do not make it up at the 5 g/L test condition printed on this page: that figure belongs to SNF’s stated dissolution test for the FLOPAM grades, and using it changes the dissolved polymer mass per litre so that a dose equal by solution volume is not equal by active polymer.

Run our candidate against the grade you currently use, on the same material, on the same day, at several dose rates, dosing on active polymer. Because the molecular-weight gap is the known open item, record floc size, drainage or dewatering response and behaviour after shear rather than settling for a single headline dose number. Then send us the results. If they hold up we quote for volume supply; if they show the chain-length difference matters for your duty, we say so and the grade does not go forward. That boundary is the point of running the comparison, and it is a better basis for a purchase than either side reading a nineteen-year-old table.