TITLE

Determination of most favorable conditions for an optimum water treatment.

OBJECTIVE

The objectives of this experiment are studying about the conventional water treatment process and
compare the data obtained at various stage of the experiment.

INTRODUCTION

Water treatment is a process which is making water suitable for its natural state. It is the very
important process. Because in these days many human activities polluting the water reservoirs. So
drinking water resources becoming lower. Raw water is natural water found in the environment and
has not been treated, nor have any minerals, ions, particles or living organisms removed. Raw water
includes rainwater, ground water, water from infiltration wells, and water from bodies like lakes and
rivers. The characteristics of raw water include physical ones, such as taste, temperature, or turbidity,
chemical ones, such as hardness, acidity and ion content, and biological ones, such as organism
presences. These characteristics can vary greatly depending on environmental conditions. Pollution
can also effect raw water content. Due to the possible contaminants, raw water must be treated before
it is allowed for human consumption or industrial use. There are several steps involved in the
treatment of raw water, and different methods in which it can take place.
Water treatment involves science, engineering, business and art. The treatment may include
mechanical, physical, biological and chemical methods. There are three types of impurities in poor
quality water, namely, dissolved substances, suspended solids and colloids. So through a treatment
process, the aim is to achieve acceptable limits for parameters like pH value and turbidity by
removing impurities.

THEORY
Drinking water supplied in the United States is the best safest in the world. However, even
there also drinking water sources can become contaminated, causing sickness and disease from
waterborne germs. Drinking water sources are subject to contamination and require appropriate
treatment to remove disease-causing agents. Many water treatment plants use a combination of
coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection to provide clean, safe drinking water to the
public. Worldwide, a combination of coagulation, sedimentation and filtration is the most widely
applied water treatment technology, and has been used since the early 20th century. Conventional
treatment consists of the following unit processes: coagulation, flocculation, clarification, and
filtration, and is typically followed by disinfection.

1.Coagulation: Natural and wastewater containing small particulates. They are suspended in water
forming a colloid. These particles carry the same charges, and repulsion prevents them from
combining into larger particulates to settle. The phenomenon is known as coagulation. In water
treatment, coagulation occurs when a coagulant is added to water to "destabilize" colloidal
suspensions. In a colloidal suspension, particles will settle very slowly or not at all because the
colloidal particles carry surface electrical charges that mutually repel each other.
 In coagulation, we add a chemical such as alum which produces positive charges to neutralize the
negative charges on the particles. Then the particles can stick together, forming larger particles
which are more easily removed. After coagulant chemicals are introduced, the water is mixed
quickly and forcefully by the flash mixer so that the chemicals are evenly distributed throughout
the water. This step is very important to create the conditions for efficient, effective water treatment.

2.Flocculation: Another method is to use high molecular weight material to attract or trap the
particulates and settle down together. Such a process is called flocculation. After flash mixing,
flocculation begins through a slower, gentler mixing that brings the fine particles produced during
the coagulation step into contact with each other. This approach allows increasingly large clumps
of matter to form without being broken apart by the mixing blades. Generally dirty water is cleaned
by treating with alum, Al2(SO4)3.12 H2O, and lime, Ca(OH)2.

3.Sedimentation: The sedimentation process removes many particles including clay and silt based
turbidity, natural organic matter, and other associated impurities. These impurities include
microbial contaminants, toxic metals, synthetic organic chemicals, iron and manganese.
Sedimentation means let the water sit around to let the floculated or coagulated particles to settle
out. It works best with relatively dense particles (e.g. silt and minerals), while flotation works better
for lighter particles (e.g. algae, color).

4.Filtration: Filtration is the process of removing solids from a fluid by passing it through a porous
medium. Coarse, medium, and fine porous media have been used depending on the requirement.
The filter media are artificial membranes, nets, sand filter, and high technological filter systems.
The choice of filters depends on the required filtering speed and the cleanness requirement.

5.Disinfection: Disinfection is defined as the process used to control waterborne pathogenic

organisms and thus prevent waterborne disease. The goal of proper disinfection in a water system
is to inactivate all disease-causing organisms.
DISCUSSION

The raw water collected from river near to Chandrika Bandaranayaka mawatha. The result
obtained from this lab experiment shows that how poor the quality of water from this canel. Chart 1
shows that the turbidity value for raw water sample collected from this river was 135 NTU and the
colour of 122 mg/L Pt/Co scale. The ideal values of drinking water for the said parameters are 0.242
NTU and 0.214 mg/L Pt/Co scale. From this charts optimum values can be calculated. Such as,
Optimum turbidity is 6.4 NTU and colour is 4 mg/L Pt/Co scale and pH value is 5. Even after
sedimentation the water sample is not suitable for drinking. The changes in UV absorption and pH
levels were negligible. Once treated with 6mg/l of FeCl3.H2O, allowed to settle and filtered, an
enormous improvement in turbidity, colour and UV absorption can be seen. The addition of
FeCl3.H2O and filtering improves the quality of water massively irrelevant of the pH value. But the
FeCl3.H2O is most effective in the sample with pH value of 5, and also the turbidity is lowest in the
sample with a pH value of 5. When treated with coagulants of different concentration, But, here, we
have used coagulant concentration as 6mg/L. There is a possibility; the reason for this is the
coagulant not being completely colourless.
Finally chlorine was added to the water. Chlorine is the most common disinfectant widely used
in industries. In our lab test we have used Cl2. Chart 2 shows how chlorine decay with the time.
Monitoring the chlorine decay of this treated water sample, with optimum pH and coagulant, shows
that the Cl2 concentration keeps on decreasing which implies that the chlorine is reacting with the
remaining organic impurities in the sample. Initially chlorine was 0.21 mg/l in raw water and 1.19
mg/I in distilled water. But after 30 min its 0.13 mg/l and 0.94 mg/l respectively in raw water and
distilled water. On the contrary, in distilled water, the Cl2 concentration levels off after a while.
Because in raw water lot of microorganism presence compare to treated water.

Chart 1: Turbidity vs pH
18 16.8
16.2
15.5
16
13.2
14
Turbidity (NTU)

12
10
8 6.4
6
4
2
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH Value
 Chart 2: Chlorine Decay Monitoring
Raw Water Distilled Water

1.4 1.19
1.2
Chlorine (mg/l) 0.94 0.92
1
0.8
0.6
0.4 0.21
0.13 0.11
0.2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (Min)

Chart 3: Water Quality Assesment

UV 254-10cm Colour Turbidity

160
135
140 122
120 109

100
80
60 39.1
40
20 0.242 0.214
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

CONCLUSION

Water pollution is a trendy topic in this season. As an engineer we should know about the water
quality assessment and how its tested. Through this lab session we gained a vast knowledge on how
to test the water quality by using chemical and physical parameters of water and determine the
optimum pH value and the coagulant dose for which the water is pure and safe to drink. The low
values for the parameters turbidity, colour, UV proves that the water is safe to drink.

REFERENCES

1. Michigan, S. o., 2016. Department of Environmental Quality. [Online] Available at:

http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec/module03/Demand.htm [Accessed 25.07.2017.
2. Health Canada. June 2006. Water Quality. [Online] Available at: www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-
semt/water-eau/index-eng.php. [Accessed 25.07.2017].
3. Wikimedia Foundation, I., 2016. Wikipedia. [Online] Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_treatment [Accessed 24.07.2017].
4. World Health Organization. 1996. Water Sanitation and Health: Coagulation, flocculation and
clarification. [Online] Available at:
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/emergencies/fs2_13.pdf.