IMPROVEMENT OF DIATOMITE CHARACTERISTICS AND ITS APPLICATION FOR WINE FILTRATION

Diatomite is widely used as a filtering material in spirit-containing systems industry. In the presented paper, different types of treatment of diatomite from the Jradzor deposit, and the effectiveness of application of the modified samples for filtering the home-made wine have been studied. It is shown that due to the treatment of the raw diatomite sample, the surface characteristics and filtration (sorption) parameters of raw diatomite are improved. At first, raw diatomite from Jradzor deposit was water treated to remove the clay additives, then thermally treated at 900 0C and after it some samples were γ-irradiated by 500 Gr- a dose, which is acceptable for foods. Based on nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, the values of the specific surface by the methods of BET and BJH have been determined. Also, the values of microporous and total pore volume, humidity and bulk density have been determined for the treated samples of diatomite. The effectiveness of home-made wine filtration capability for two modified samples of diatomite have been studied. The effect of the filtering material amount and the filtering material-filtrate shaking time on the effectiveness of filtration has been studied by the photocolorimetric method. It is established that the γ-irradiated samples, which pass the water and thermal treatments at 900 0C, are more effective than the filtering materials