@M= wr... ARSENIC REMOVAL BY COAGULATION AND ULTRAFILTRATION Author: Victoria Vasini iia Argentina presents areas with high arsenic concentration on ground water. In Buenos Aires province, for example. only 20% of the water complies with the law of potable water: < 50 ppb of arsenic, with the objective of reducing it further to < 10 ppb in the near future, Long-term exposure to arsenic containing waters increase the risk of diseases, including cancer. This paper shows an improvement of the known coagulation/filtration process for arsenic removal, by implementing the technology of Ultrafiltration (UF) as the polishing stage. The advantages of the proposed method are studied, and the results are shown below. The conclusions are based on the pilot tests ran in the town of French, Buenos Aires Province, where arsenic levels are higher than permitted by the Cédigo Alimentario Argentino (191 ppb) and where coagulation + sedimentation plant is in operation, ‘The existing treatment plant (coagulation + conventional sedimentation) consumes 140 mg/l of ferric chloride to achieve less than 10 ppb of arsenic. A series of pilot test were conducted to study the coagulant requirements for arsenic removal, compared to the existing conventional plant, and to validate that online-coagulation was feasible, without the need of a reaction tank. METHODS To evaluate the performance of the UF system in the removal of arsenic, a pilot test was built with the following stages: Feed pump (3.5 nvifh @ 2 bar) Dosing stage: Chlorine Coagulant Acid for pH adjustment Static mixer Pre-fltration (130 microns) Membrane Ultrafiltration Chemically Enhanced Backwash system The UF membrane tolerates chlorine and due to its pore size (- 20 nm). it acts as a microbiological barrier since it presents a removal of 6 log of bacteria and 4 log of Typically, arsenic occurs in waters in two oxidation states: arsenite As(lll) and arsenate As(V). Arsenite is, poorly ionized at neutral pH, therefore it is more difficult to react and to be removed, Arsenate, on the other hand, is dissociated and negatively charged at pH between 6 and 8, f ss 22 12 me a2 Pea The curves show that ferric chloride is more effective than PAC for the removal of arsenic by coagulation-ultrafiltration. Also, that the maximum removal efficiency occurs at lower pH, since the arsenic is in its dissociated form and the ferric hydroxide has a positive charge on its surface, allowing for the adsorption and coprecipitation. Chlorine injection, used to oxidize arsenite to arsenate, doesn’t seem to have a significant impact on the removal efficiency at lower pH. At higher pH does show a higher removal, suggesting that there might be some arsenite in the raw water that is oxidize to arsenate and further removed. It was proven that online coagulation is feasible and that it requires only 30 ppm of coagulant. compared to the 140 ppm required for the conventional sedimentation reducing not only the coagulant consumption but also the footprint of the system. The existing conventional plant occupies an area of approximately 40 m? to produce 15 m’/h while an online coagulation-ultrafiltration system requires 6 m*: less than 20% of the footprint.Also, since UF produces higher water quality, it is a better solution to produce safe potable water, achieving: ‘Better microbiological quality *Lower arsenic concentration ‘*Complete removal of turbidity Finally, it is a much robust process since regardless of the feed quality, the UF will produce excellent water quality since it's an absolute barrier to suspended solids Br Earn FeCl; + 3H2O - Fe(OH); + 3HCI Fertic hydroxide has a positive charge that is a factor of the pH: at lower pH, more sites ate positively charged, favoring the reaction (i), In theory it is necessary to achieve a pH lower than 73 for the reaction to occur. For these reasons, itis preferred to operate at a pH between 6 and 7.3 The curves below show the coagulant consumption for the conventional plant as well as for the pilot test considering ferric chloride dosing, with and without pH adjustment and with and without chlorine It also shows the PAC consumption for achieving similar efficiency on As removal. As it can be seen, the PAC consumption is higher than of FeCl; to achieve the same removal. This matches the literature that shows higher compatibility of arsenic with iron than aluminum (ii). Since the commercial presentation of ferric chloride is 40%, the actual metal dose associated to 30 ppm of the product is 12 ppm de FeCl: or 4 ppm of Fe. Ina similar way, PAC concentration of the commercial product is 18% of alumina, therefore, 100 ppm of commercial PAC equals to 18 ppm of alumina (Al,©,) or 95 ppm of Al. enema Online coagulation-ultrafiltration is a robust process to remove arsenic from well water, reaching potable water quality with reasonable doses of coagulant, and without the need of a reaction tank Itis more efficient to remove arsenic with ferric chloride than with PAC, and a pH adjustment to values lower than 7.3 is recommended Chlorine is needed to oxidize Asi), when present, to Giga i) Kabay, N., Bundschuh, J, Hendry, 8. “The global arsenic problemy challenges for safe water production” CRC Press/Balkema, 2010. ii)Fondo, L, “El arsénico en agua potable’ Veolia Water. 2010 As(V). ‘The treated water quality is better in terms of | microbiological quality. The footprint of the coagulation-ultrafiltration water treatment plant is less than 20% of the conventional coagulation sedimentation plant for the same capacity. Nas Juan Pablo Camezzana Jeamezzana@tluencecorpcom Phone |-54225 0.8808 1 fluence’