Water Treatment

Water Treatment

A course for the water industry, mainly aimed at potable water treatment and physical-chemical treatment required in wastewater treatment and reclamation and also in the treatment of residuals from both water and wastewater treatment processes and selected industrial wastewaters.

1   Water quality requirements

•        Background: Water chemistry, atomic structure, stoichiometry, redox reactions, pH, alkalinity, hardness.  Water biology, classification of organisms.   Measurement of water quality. 
•        Drinking water quality criteria
•        Health and aesthetic aspects of drinking water
•        Chemical principles, source composition and water sheds
•        Hydraulic characteristics of reactors
•        Overview of water treatment processes
•        Removal of organic contaminants. 
•        Typical potable water plants. 
•        Physical chemical treatment in wastewater treatment plants.
•        Fresh water sources, water demand and variability, water pollutants 

2  Gas-Liquid Processes

3   Chemical Oxidation

•        Ozonation – reactions with organic substances, mass transfer, and equipment design
•        Alternative disinfection and oxidation procedures (opportunity)

4   Coagulation and Flocculation

•        Colloidal suspensions; turbidity and coagulation; chemicals required: aluminum sulfate, ferric chloride, lime, polymers, clay minerals; rapid mixing.
•        Flocculation – shear gradients, energy requirements, floc rupture, tapered flocculation, Camp no.; flocculation equipment, head loss, examples

5   Screens,Sedimentation and Flotation

•        Sedimentation – definitions, applications, settling of discrete particles, sedimentation classes; settling tank design, types of settling tanks, examples
•         Flotation – aims, methodology of gas-solid floc formation, gas introduction

6  Filtration

•        Granular bed (sand), precoat and membrane filtration.

•        Different types of filtration used in water treatment (opportunity for term paper)
•        Rapid and slow sand filtration – medium characterization, head loss over granular beds, fouling, backwashing, filter sizing and layout, novel filtration designs (opportunity)

7   Membranes

8   Ion exchange and inorganic adsorption

•        Reverse osmosis, ion exchange, adsorption, membrane technology and redox reactions for removal of pollutants

9   Precipitation, Softening and Stabilization   

•        Precipitation of dissolved metals 

10   Adsorption of organics by activated carbon

11   Disinfection

•        Background: diseases carried in water –Different approaches to disinfection and disinfectant types, disinfection kinetics
•        Chlorination – reactions with ammonia and organic substances, equipment

12   Tertiary treatment, water reclamation and natural treatment

13   Quality maintenance during distribution 

14   Water treatment plant residuals management