Republic of the Philippines

Eastern Visayas State University

Tacloban City

BUILDING UTILITIES I

A CASE STUDY ON SUSTAINABLE

WATER TREATMENT METHODS

SUBMITTED BY:
DILAO, MA. MELLE G.
BSAR 2A

SUBMITTED TO:
AR. EDISON T. LONGCOP, UAP, NAMPAP,PIEP
INSTRUCTOR

NOVEMBER 2020
INTRODUCTION
 Water, has the ability to dissolve many other substances, whereas composed
of chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen; and existing in gaseous, liquid, and
solid states. However, having water contaminated affects millions of people
considering that it has bacteria, chemicals, manmade pollutants and other
contaminants which lead to a higher risk of diseases.

Diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio are some examples of it,
that’s why a process involving different types of operations (physical, chemical,
physicochemical and biological), the aim of which is to eliminate and/or reduce
contamination or non-desirable characteristics of water. This process is called
Water treatment. This process has an objective to obtain water with the right
features for the use intended for it. This is why the water treatment process varies
as a function of the properties of the water being supplied and its final use.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER TREATMENT

Water treatment is increasingly necessary due to drinking water shortages,

and the growing needs of the global population of the planet’s total water reserves,
only 2.5% is freshwater - and of this amount only 0.4% is water fit for human
consumption.

Water resources like rivers, lakes, which provide water contain a lot of
pollution, garbage unfit for consumption. To be clean, the water should undergo a
number of treatments necessary to make it drinkable. Water purifiers designed to
eliminate or reduce certain pollutants (nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals, organic
materials...), as well as improve the quality taste of water (eliminating chlorine). In
other words water treatment is important to keep people from diseases that caused
by a water contaminations.

WATER TREATMENT METHODS

Coagulation/ Flocculation

Coagulant chemicals with charges opposite those of the suspended solids are
added to the water to neutralize the negative charges on non-settable solids (such
as clay and color-producing organic substances). Once the charge is neutralized,
the small suspended particles are capable of sticking together. These slightly larger
particles are called microflocs, and are not visible to the naked eye. Water
surrounding the newly formed microflocs should be clear. If not, coagulation and
some of the particles charge have not been neutralized. More coagulant chemicals
may need to be added. A high-energy, rapid-mix to properly disperse coagulant
and promote particle collisions is needed to achieve good coagulation. Over-
mixing does not affect coagulation, but insufficient mixing will leave this step
incomplete. Contact time in the rapid-mix chamber is typically 1 to 3 minutes.
 Flocculation, a gentle mixing stage, increases the particle size from
submicroscopic microfloc to visible suspended particles. Microfloc particles
collide, causing them to bond to produce larger, visible flocs called pinflocs. Floc
size continues to build with additional collisions and interaction with added
inorganic polymers (coagulant) or organic polymers. Macroflocs are formed and
high molecular weight polymers, called coagulant aids, may be added to help
bridge, bind, and strengthen the floc, add weight, and increase settling rate. Once
floc has reached it optimum size and strength, water is ready for sedimentation.
Design contact times for flocculation range from 15 or 20 minutes to an hour or
more, and flocculation requires careful attention to the mixing velocity and amount
of mix energy. To prevent floc from tearing apart or shearing, the mixing velocity
and energy are usually tapered off as the size of floc increases. Once flocs are torn
apart, it is difficult to get them to reform to their optimum size and strength. The
amount of operator control available in flocculation is highly dependent upon the
type and design of the equipment.
Sedimentation

In water treatment sedimentation is used to reduce the concentration of

particles in suspension before the application of coagulation, to reduce the amount
of coagulating chemicals needed, or after coagulation and, possibly, flocculation.
When sedimentation is applied after coagulation, its purpose is usually to reduce
the concentration of solids in suspension so that the subsequent filtration can
function most effectively. Sedimentation is one of several methods for application
prior to filtration: other options include dissolved air flotation and some methods
of filtration. Generically, such solids-liquid separation processes are sometimes
referred to as clarification processes. There is a variety of methods for applying
sedimentation and this includes: horizontal flow, radial flow, inclined plate,
ballasted floc and floc blanket sedimentation.

 Horizontal flow tanks

The simplest form of sedimentation is to fill a jar or tank with water, leave
alone for a long enough time for particles to settle and then decant off the resulting
water without the sediment. In practice this is rarely viable in treating water for
townships, and therefore sedimentation tanks are operated continuously.

The simplest method of sedimentation is to use rectangular tanks with

horizontal flow through them. The water with the particles in suspension is
introduced at one end of the tank, then as the water flows to the other end of the
tank settlement of particles in the water occurs. The aim is that a large proportion
of the settling particles manage to reach the tank floor before the water is drawn
out of the tank at the outlet end. Such horizontal flow tanks are usually built with a
floor that slopes gently down to the inlet end to a hopper. The tank is fitted with a
mechanism to scrape the sediment from the outlet end back to the inlet end and
into the hopper from where it can be discharged hydraulically. In the design of
such tanks detailed attention has to be given to the inlet and outlet ends so that the
water flows from one end to the end as uniformly as possible.

Partly because rectangular tanks have a large footprint, multi-layer tanks (i.e.
two or three decks) have been built. These tanks are usually multi-pass in that the
water flows along the length of one layer before returning along the next.

 Radial flow tanks

Radial flow tanks are circular with the inlet for the water at the center and a
peripheral outlet. Attention has to be paid to the design of inlet to support uniform
distribution of flow to the whole of the tank. The sediment is scraped to a central
hopper for its discharge.

Some circular tanks include additional features in the center for flocculation
(i.e. premix designs) and even recirculation of settled particles (i.e. premix-
recirculation designs).
  Inclined settling

In unhindered settling tank size is governed by the time to be allowed for

particles to settle through the depth of water. The simple theory shows that
efficiency of removal of particles is governed by the area available for settlement.
An approach to providing a large are with a small footprint is to use inclined plates
or tubes. These are usually constructed with lightweight material in modular form
which can be easily positioned in a concrete or steel tank.

Flow between such inclined plates can be co-current, counter-current or cross-

flow. In the co-current arrangement, the water flows downward between the plates
on the direction of particle settlement. In the counter-current arrangement, the
water flows upward between the plates against the direction of particle settlement.
In cross-flow the water flows across the plates, i.e. horizontal, at right angles to the
direction of particle settlement. A design challenge for inclined settling is to
maximize distribution of flow of water within and between plates and thereby
maximize efficiency of particle removal. Inclined tubes can be used in either co-
current or counter-current modes, but in most instances in the latter. Tube modules
can be constructed in a variety of ways such that the cross-sectional shape of tubes
can take various forms.

 Ballasted sedimentation

The density difference between water and the particles produced in water
treatment by coagulation, flocs, in general is small. Therefore they settle slowly.
Methods of plain sedimentation (i.e. horizontal, radial and inclined sedimentation)
are preceded by a slow mixing process called flocculation. The purpose of
flocculation is to assist coagulated particles to collide and adhere so as to grow into
larger particles that might settle faster, and for the particle size distribution to be as
small as possible. Flocculation can be assisted by the application of high molecular
weight polymers called polyelectrolytes. In the first instance flocculation does not
increase particle density – a property of flocs is that their density decreases with
increase in particle size.

The density of floc particles can be increased by application of a ballasting

agent such as Bentonite or fine sand. In the case of fine sand (80-200 µm), it is
possible to recover it for recycling by means of passing the sludge collected from
the sedimentation tank through hydrocyclones. The settling rate of floc ballasted
with fine sand can be three or more times faster than floc that is not ballasted, and
is usually settled in a tank with counter-current inclined plate system placed over a
hopper in which the settled sludge is collected.

 Floc blanket sedimentation

The first floc blanket tanks had an inverted pyramidal shape topped by a
short vertical section. (‘Floc blanket’ is used in preference to ‘sludge blanket’. This
is because the view is taken that floc in the suspension is still functioning as floc
should, helping to remove the particles in the incoming water. Once floc becomes
part of sediment and become surplus to the process, the sediment is sludge.
Therefore, when sediment is allowed to accumulate on the floor of a tank that
might appropriately be referred to as a sludge blanket, as is typical in sewage
treatment.) The incoming suspension was fed downward into the apex of the
pyramidal hopper by a single pipe. The blanket occupied most of the pyramidal
hopper. The comparative success of floc blanket settling resulted in adaptation of
premix-recirculation tanks being developed to include floc blanket zones.
However, more effective developments and cheaper designs led to use of flat-
bottomed rectangular tanks fed by an arrangement of multiple inlet pipes –
candelabra like, or horizontal pipes with multiple orifices close to the tank floor.
Further developments have led to the use of inclined plate or tube modules in such
tanks.

Filtration

Once the floc has settled to the bottom of the water supply, the clear water
on top will pass through filters of varying compositions (sand, gravel, and
charcoal) and pore sizes, in order to remove dissolved particles, such as dust,
parasites, bacteria, viruses, and chemicals.
 Filtration is a process that removes particles from suspension in water.
Removal takes place by a number of mechanisms that include straining,
flocculation, sedimentation and surface capture. Filters can be categorized by the
main method of capture, i.e. exclusion of particles at the surface of the filter media
i.e. straining, or deposition within the media i.e. in-depth filtration. Strainers
generally consist of a simple thin physical barrier made from metal or plastic. In
water treatment they tend to be used at the inlet to the treatment system to exclude
large objects (e.g. leaves, fish, and coarse detritus). These may be manually or
mechanically scraped bar screens. The spacing between the bars ranges from 1 to
10 cm. Intake screens can have much smaller spacing created by closely spaced
plates or even fine metal fabric. The latter are usually intended to remove fine silt
and especially algae and are referred to as micro strainers.

Filters, as commonly understood in water treatment generally consist of a

medium within which it is intended most of the particles in the water will be
captured. Such filters might be manufactured as disposable cartridge filters, which
can be suitable for domestic (i.e. point-of-use treatment) and small-scale industrial
applications. Larger forms of cartridge filters exist which can be cleaned. One
version is pre coat filtration in which a porous support surface is given a sacrificial
coating of diatomaceous earth, or other suitable material, each time the filter has
been cleaned. Additionally, a small amount of the diatomaceous earth is applied
continuously during filtration. However, in most cases, filters used in municipal
water treatment contain sand or another appropriate granular material (e.g.
anthracite, crushed glass or other ceramic material, or another relatively inert
mineral) as the filter medium. Filtration using such filters is often referred to as in-
depth granular media filtration.

Granular media filters are used in either of two distinct ways which are
commonly called slow-sand filtration and rapid gravity or pressure filtration. When
the filters are used as the final means of particle removal from the water, then the
filters may need to be preceded by another stage of solid-liquid separation
(clarification) such as sedimentation (Sedimentation Processes), dissolved-air
flotation (Flotation Processes) or possibly a preliminary stage of filtration. Other
processes take place in vessels similar to those used for granular media filtration,
and in some respects the processes do have similarities with filtration but filtration
is not their sole or primary purpose. Therefore, such processes are not considered
further in this article. Examples include vessels filled with granular activated
carbon for removal of dissolved organic substances, and vessels filled with ion
exchange resin for removal of inorganic and organic ions. There are applications of
filters that whilst filtration (removal of particles) does take place a secondary
process is intended to also occur, e.g. iron and manganese removal, and arsenic
removal.

Disinfection
 Before water can be passed into the public supply, it is necessary to remove
all potentially pathogenic micro-organisms. Since these micro-organisms are
extremely small, it is not possible to guarantee their complete removal by
sedimentation and filtration, so the water must be disinfected to ensure its quality.
Disinfection is the inactivation of pathogenic organisms and is not to be confused
with sterilization, which is the destruction of all organisms.

Fluoridation

Water fluoridation is where community water supplies are treated with a

concentration of the free fluoride ion. This is adjusted to an optimum level to
reduce dental decay. We're required to fluoridate in accordance with the NSW
Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act 1957.
pH Correction

The simplest method of elevating pH is to pass the water through a filter bed
of alkaline granular material. Such filters are referred to as pH correction filters or
neutralizing filters. The alkaline media is usually calcium carbonate or magnesium
oxide, or a combination of both. Lime is added to filtered water to adjust the pH
and stabilize the naturally soft water. This minimizes corrosion in the distribution
system, and within customers’ plumbing.

Reverse Osmosis

This technique is rapidly becoming a major means of desalination, with

research producing membranes with lower operating pressures (and hence lower
operating costs). Originally a pressure of 14 × 106Pa was needed to separate pure
water from sea water but with newer membranes only half this pressure is required.

Reverse osmosis membranes operate at ambient temperature, in contrast to

multistage flash distillation, and this lower temperature minimizes scaling and
corrosion problems. To prevent problems with organic fouling of the membrane,
pretreatment of the feed water is required.

Aeration

Aeration is used in water treatment as a pretreatment in the process of

removing iron and hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) from water. Air is a
powerful oxidizer of both iron and hydrogen sulfide. It quickly converts
unfilterable ferrous iron to filterable ferric iron, and it reduces hydrogen sulfide to
elemental sulphur, which is easily removed from water by a filter.

Aeration treatment consists of passing large amounts of air through water

and then venting the air outside. The air causes the dissolved gases or volatile
compounds to release from the water. The air and the contaminants released from
the water are vented. In the case of iron and manganese, the air causes these
minerals to move from their dissolved state to a solid state and precipitate out of
solution. The water can then move through a filter to trap the iron and manganese
particles. Aeration devices range from a simple, open holding tank that allows
dissolved gases to diffuse into the atmosphere to a more complex aeration system
that has a column or tower filled with packing material. As water passes through
the packing material, the gases are released. Adjusting the water pressure is usually
 necessary following treatment. This involves installing a pump after the treatment
device to distribute the water throughout the home.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

TREATMENT METHOD SUSTAINABILI COST APPLICABILITY

TY

Coagulation/Flocculation Relatively Coagulation flocculation is a

low cost conventional pre-treatment method
(typically in combination with
sedimentation] and rapid sand
filtration) used to separate the
suspended and dissolved compounds
(turbidity) from the water in
(semi-)centralized drinking water
 treatment plants. Many charged
species such as suspended mineral,
organics, pathogens, and dissolved
species such as metal ions,
phosphates, fluoride, and
radionuclides can be separated by
these processes.

Sedimentation Sedimentation is suitable for water

with high sediment content. It is easy
to perform and requires a minimum
of materials and skill. It can be done
with as little as two or more simple
storage vessels such as pots and
buckets by manual transfer.
Typically, at least two containers are
needed to settle water: one to act as
the settling vessel and another to be
the recipient of the supernatant water
after the settling period. Care must be
taken to avoid disturbing the
sedimented particles when recovering
the supernatant water by decanting or
other methods.

Filtration

Disinfection

Fluoridation

pH Correction

Reverse Osmosis

Aeration
RESULT OR FINDINGS OF THE ANALYSIS

CONCLUSION
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