Lecture 4

ENE-101
Introduction to Environmental Engineering
(3+0)

Instructor: Madiha Razzaq

Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (IESE)

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (SCEE)
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Islamabad, Pakistan
 Learning Outcome
At the end of this lecture students will be able to understand
- Classification of water pollutants
- National Water Quality Standards
- Rationale for water treatment
- How water is treated conventionally?
- Water treatment methods
- Coagulation/flocculation
- Sedimentation
- Filtration
- Disinfection

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 Impurities in Water

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 Water Quality Parameters
 Physical
- Physical characteristics are usually associated with appearance e.g. color, taste, odour or
temperature.

 Chemical
- Differences in water evidenced by their observed reactions e.g. performance of hard and soft water
in laundering.

 Biological
- Biological agents important from public health perspective and may also modify physical and
chemical characteristics of water.

 Radiological
- Considered only when water has come in contact with radioactive

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 Impurities in Water
1. Pathogens 6. Heavy metals

2. Oxygen-demanding wastes 7. Pesticides

3. Nutrients 8. Volatile organic compounds

4. Salts 9. Sediments

5. Thermal pollutants 10. Radioactive substances

Particles in water widely vary in size, concentration and origin.

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 Size Classification of Pollutants
Pollutants in water can exist in one of the three classifications
1. Dissolved
2. Suspended
3. Colloidal

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 Example

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 Water Quality Standards
 Stream standards
- Standards that define streams, lakes, oceans or seas based on their maximum use

 Effluent standards
- Standards for the level of contaminants or effluents allowed during the final discharge
into the water bodies

 Drinking water standards

- The level of contamination allowed in water that will be supplied for drinking or
cooking in the domestic areas

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 NDWQS
CFU = Colony Forming Unit
TCU = Total Colour Units
WHO = World Health Organization
NGVS = No Guideline Value Set
NDWQS = National Drinking Water Quality Standards
NTU =Turbidity Unit

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 Water Treatment
 Water Treatment
- Water treatment is any process that improves the quality of water to make it
appropriate for a specific end-use.

 Why clean Water?

- Access to safe drinking water is the basic human right.
- Pakistan Vision 2025 and UN SDG’s 2030 impose obligations on Pakistan towards
achieving its water and sanitation goals.
- Drinking water is also placed on priority No. 1 in the approved National Water Policy
2018.

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 Rationale for Water Treatment
 Health Aspects: To protect the consumer’s health (bacteriological safe)
- cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid, hepatitis etc.

 Aesthetic Reason: Make it acceptable by the consumers [sight, taste, odor and color]
 Economical reasons: for preventing
- scaling and corrosion in pipe lines
- staining cloths during laundering
- hard water uses large amount of soap

 Make-up deficiency in some quality parameter of water

- Oxygen by aeration
- Fluoride (addition) to municipal water for protecting child’s teeth.

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 Rationale for Water Treatment
 Industrial Reasons

- Boiler feed water

• Soft water without oxygen as O2 cause corrosion

- Dying purposes
• Should be free of Fe & Mn as they stain clothes

- Medicines
• Distilled water

- Soft drinks
• Water should have zero turbidity. Why????

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 Criteria for Selecting a treatment process
 Quality of raw water
- Water source
- Period of the Year

 Required quality of treated water (ultimate/end use)

 Economical resources available for operation and maintenance

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 Raw Water Sources
 Ground water
- usually safe (no turbidity and fecal contamination) only disinfection is required. Why?

 Surface water
- high turbidity, bacteriological contamination and suspended solids

 Many public water supplies are based on surface waters. e.g.,

- river (e.g. Murree; Haro fiver)
- canals (e.g. south Punjab)
- dams (e.g. Rawalpindi-Rawal dam)
- lakes (e.g. Karachi-Kalari lake)

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 Water Treatment Options
 Floating objects (Screening)

 Algae (Straining / Fine Screen)

 Excessive Fe & Mn and Hardness (Precipitation)

 Suspended Solids (rapid/plain Sedimentation)

 Dissolved gases (Aeration)

 Taste/ Odor/ Color (Adsorption/ Aeration etc.)

 Organic / bacteriological pollution (Disinfection)

 Turbidity (Reverse osmosis)

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 Conventional Water Treatment Process

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 Coagulation & Flocculation

Inter particle Aggregation of particles

forces are reduced by slow mixing

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 Coagulation & Flocculation

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 Coagulation
 Also known as rapid mixing
 A large number of suspended particles in water are colloidal in nature
 Colloids are
- Small particles (0.001 to 1 µm)
- Usually negatively charged
- Particles which repel so suspension is considered stable

Coagulation is the process by which particles become destabilized and begin to clump together. The
objective of coagulation (and subsequently flocculation) is to turn the small into larger flocs, either as
precipitates or suspended particles.

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 Objective of Coagulation
 Coagulation intends to remove
- Turbidity

- Organic and inorganic matter

- Color

- Harmful and other pathogenic bacteria

- Algae, planktons and other organisms

- Taste and odor producing substances

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 Coagulation Mechanism

Since colloids are stable because of their surface charge, in order to destabilize the particles, we must
neutralize this charge. Such neutralization can take place by addition of an ion of opposite charge to the
colloid. Since most colloids found in water are negatively charged, the addition of a divalent or trivalent
should reduce the charge.
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 Coagulants
 The key properties of a coagulant are
- Trivalent cation
- Non toxic & inexpensive
- Insoluble in neutral pH range

 Commonly used coagulants are

- Metal Salts
• Alum (Al2(SO4)3.14H2O)

• Ferrous Sulfate (FeSO4)

• Ferric Chloride (FeCl3)

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 Coagulants

Industrial Wastewater

Alum is widely used for public/ municipal water

treatment plants, Why?

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 Coagulants
 Cationic Polymers (CP)
- Preferred over metallic salts, especially in wastewater treatment.
- Fewer applications in water treatment; enough data on their health impacts not yet
available.
- Why preferred?
• Produce less sludge as compared to metallic salts.

• Flocs are stronger and larger, hence higher SOR can be used. Benefit?

 Combination of metallic salts and polymers

- metallic salts are as coagulant (neutralize charge)

- polymers are as coagulant aid (for formation of bigger and stronger flocs)

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 Finding Coagulant Dose

Jar test is used to find (1) optimum coagulant dose (2) best mixing speeds and (3) best mixing timings

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 Flocculation
The precipitates formed in coagulation process must be brought in contact with one another
so that they can agglomerate and form larger particles called flocs. The contacting process
is called flocculation and is accomplished by gentle mixing called flocculation.

Flocculants are polymers that cause destabilized clumps of particles to agglomerate and
drop out of the solution, removing them from the filtered water

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 Sedimentation
Discrete Settling: The particles do not interfere
with each other as they settle, and thus their
size and velocity do not change during settling.
It applies to sedimentation in water treatment.

Flocculent Settling: Particles join each other

(flocculate) as they settle. Size and velocity
Increases as they settle. It applies to
sedimentation after flocculation in water and
wastewater treatment.
.

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 Filtration
Filtration is used to remove the impurities from water by passing through a bed of fine granular medium

 Filtration may help in removing color, odor, turbidity and some pathogenic bacteria from water
 Different media may be:
- Graded silica sand (most commonly used in public water supplies)
- Crushed Anthracite coal
- Granular activated carbon

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 Theory of Filtration
 The water is filtered through beds of fine granular media, the following actions
takes place
- Mechanical straining
- Sedimentation
- Biological action
- Adsorption

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 Filter Classification
Classified on rate of filters

Slow Sand Filters Rapid Sand Filter

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 RSF Backwashing

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 Comparison of RSF and SSF
Merits of SSF Merits of RSF

1. Quality of water (better than RSF) 1. Smaller footprint (area required).

2. Household level application (possible)
3. Water conservation (no back-washing)
4. Sludge re-handling and disposal issue (less)

De-Merits of RSF
De-Merits of SSF
1. Require large area 1. High operational cost
2. Algae growth is more, which interfere with 2. Skilled labour required.
filtration process, early choking and 3. Complex operation.
deteriorate quality of filtered water.

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 Which filter to use?
 Parameters that decide the type to be used are
- Amount of water to be treated (small or large water supplies)
- Availability of land
- Institutional capacity of organization that is going to run the system.

Pre-treatment is essential prior to filtration if turbidity of raw water is more than 10

NTU. Pre-treatment employed is coagulation, flocculation and sedimentation.

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