122 ENVIRONMENT

PRESSURE FILTERS

Pressure filter
 The unit is like a rapid sand filter with a difference that complete unit is inside a closed
chamber. Flow of water through sand is not under gravity. This implies that water inside
the chamber is under pressure.
 Diameter of the week is 1.5 – 3.0 m.
 Height or length is 3.5 to 8.0 m.
 It is operated like a rapid gravity filter except that raw water is neither flocculated no
sedimented before it enters the filter.
 Rate of filtration is this case is 6000 – 15000 lit/𝑚2 /hr.
 It is used for clarifying softened water at industrial plants and in treating swimming pool
water.
Pressure Filter Suffers from the Following Disadvantage
1. Treatment of water under pressure seriously complicates effective feeding mixing and
flocculation of water to be filters.
2. In case of direct supply from pressure filter it is not possible to provide adequate contact
time for chlorine.
3. Water under filtration and the sand bed are out of sight and it is not possible to observe
the effectiveness of the backwash or the degree of agitation during wasting process.
4. It is difficult to inspect clean and replace the sand, gravel and under-drain of pressure
filter and
5. Became the water is under pressure at the delivery end. On occasions when the pressure
on the discharge main is released suddenly the entire sand bed might be disturbed
violently with disastrous results to the filter efficient.
DISINFECTION
 Disinfection may be defined as the process of destruction or inactivation of harmful
micro-organism in water either by physical process or chemical process. Physical process
includes heating, ultraviolet radiation etc. and chemical process includes addition of
disinfectants such as chemicals.