Theory:

Since pure water rarely exists in nature, many water treatment processes have been developed to
purify raw water for both human and industrial use. Raw water can have different impurities
depending on its source. Thus, it is crucial to analyse the type of impurities present in the water to
have an effective treatment plan. In terms of size, the impurities mainly occur in three states:
suspended, colloidal and dissolved matter [4]. Impurities can also be divided into neutral and charged
particles. In order to remove small, charged impurities, they must be neutralised and then clumped
together to form larger units. These two successive processes are called coagulation and flocculation.

During the coagulation processes, chemicals are added to the raw water to destabilise the negatively
charged colloidal particles, hence preventing them from repulsing each other. In the water treatment
industry, Salts of aluminium or iron are the most commonly used coagulant chemicals due to their
effectiveness, affordability, and high availability. In this experiment, two types of coagulants are
used: aluminium sulphate and ferric chloride. Once added to water, a series of reactions occur with
the water and other ions in the water. Specifically, there are three mechanisms that affect the quality
of the process coagulation the most. First is electrostatic coagulation, where the positive ions coming
from the coagulants accumulate around the diffusive layer around the colloids, destabilising the
exterior of the colloidal particles. Hence, allowing them to form a floc. The second mechanism is
adsorptive coagulation. This mechanism mainly occurs at low pH, where positive ions react with
water molecules to form positively charged hydrolyses products. In this experiment, the hydrolyses
products would be: Fe ¿, and AlO H 2+¿¿ (eq. 1-4). Those large, positively charged particles can
absorbed the small, negatively charged colloids. Hence, they form large flocs. In an adsorptive
coagulation process, the dose of the coagulants is proportional to the removal of the impurities.
However, once the coagulant exceeds its optimal concertation, the collides can restabilise due to the
repulsions caused by the excess of the positively charged particles. This would result in water with
high turbidity. + ¿¿
2 +¿+H O ¿
Fe3( aq+¿) +2 H 2 O(l) → Fe ( OH )(aq) ¿ 3 (aq)
(1)
+ ¿→¿
2 +¿+H 3 O(aq) ¿
Fe ( OH )(aq) Fe ¿ (2)
+ ¿¿
3 +¿ 2+¿+ H3 O(aq )¿
Al( aq ) +2 H 2 O(l) → Al ( OH ) (aq) ¿ (3)
+ ¿→¿
2+¿+H 3 O ¿
Al ( OH )(aq) (aq)
Al ¿ (4)
The last coagulation mechanism is the precipitation coagulation. In this process, the coagulant is
added to react with the collides and form a metal hydroxide (eq. 5&6). A sufficient amount of
coagulant must be added to ensure that the metal hydroxide would exceed the solubility limit, hence
forming a precipitate. This mechanism mainly occurs in water with low amounts of suspended solids.
The metal hydroxide flocs are insoluble over specific values of pH, which might vary with the source
of the raw water. Therefore, the pH control is crucial in the coagulation process.
2+ ¿→ Fe ( OH ) −floc ¿
FeCl3( aq) + H 2 O → Fe (OH )(aq) 3
(5)( s)

2+¿ → Al ( OH )3 −floc( s) ¿
Al2 ( S O4 )3(aq) + H 2 O → AlOH (aq) (6)

The coagulation process is generally followed by the flocculation phase. Flocculation is a process of
water movement that provides efficient collision between small flocs produced by the coagulation
process to form larger units that are easier to remove. Typically, mechanical stirrers are used to
generate contacts between the floc particles. Three main factors must be considered to ensure an
effective flocculation process: selecting the proper residence time, appropriate mixing intensity, and
sufficiently shaped chamber. Ineffective mixing leads to poor collisions and hence insignificant floc
formation. On the other hand, inappropriately vigorous mixing might tear apart flocculated particles
after they have been immobilised.
Discussion:

Optimum pH:

Optimum pH for 1 g/dm3 concentration:

In figure 1, the turbidity of water samples that were treated using two coagulants, Ferric Chloride and
Aluminium sulphate, is shown as function of the initial pH value. It is evident that the optimum pH
value for both coagulants was at 5 since it yielded the lowest turbidity value. Figure 1 shows a trend
where the turbidity decreases as the optimal pH is approached. After reaching the optimal pH, the
turbidity starts to increase until neutral pH is reached. As the water samples become more basic,
turbidity start to decrease again. This behaviour is best explained by considering the coagulations
mechanism present at each pH value. Since they were highly acidic, water samples at pH of 3&4 had
+¿¿
an excess of Hydronium ( H 3 O ), leading the equilibrium to favour the backwards reactions in
equations 1 to 4. As a result, hydrolysis products would form at low concertation that is not sufficient
for absorbing the impurities present in the samples. As for precipitation coagulation, the low
−¿¿
Hydroxide (OH ) concertation in acidic solutions prevent the coagulants from forming enough
precipitate of metal hydroxides. The coagulation process reached its maximum efficiency at a pH
value of 5 (fig. 1), resulting in water samples with the lowest turbidity. This observation indicates that
the dominate mechanism is the adsorptive coagulations since it favours pH values of 5 to 7 []. In
2 +¿¿
theory, effective adsorptive coagulations require the hydrolysis products ( Fe ( OH )(aq) , Fe ¿,
2+¿¿
Al ( OH )(aq) and Al ¿) to be produced at sufficient concentrations to adsorb the present collides.
Although equations 1 to 4 show the equilibrium reactions between the metal salts and water, they are
not enough to determine the operating pH since the water samples are contaminated with charged
particles that affect the equilibrium constant. Therefore, the optimal operating pH for adsorptive
process using ferric chloride and aluminium sulphate for treating raw water in this experiment was
found to be 5. As the value of pH exceed the neutralisation point, the number of positively charged
particles decreases. Consequently, the effect of both electrostatic and adsorptive coagulation deceases,
which explains the increase in turbidity after surpassing the optimal pH value. However, since basic
solutions favour the formation of precipitants, there was a light decrease in the turbidity at pH values
of 7 and 8 due to precipitation coagulation.

On the second day, the same coagulants were used but at higher concentrations. Therefore, figures 2
and 4 do not follow the same trends. Moreover, unlike figure 2, Ferric Chloride and Aluminium
Sulphate have different optimum pH value and behave differently at the same pH regions. At a
concertation of 10 g dm-3, Ferric Chloride had an optimal pH of 6, whilst Aluminium Sulphate had a
value of 5. As the pH increases from 3 to 4, the turbidly value related to the samples treated by Ferric
Chloride decreased, meanwhile, it increased for samples treated by Aluminium Sulphate. As the pH
increase, the formation of the hydrolyses product is favoured, hence lower concentrations of iron and
aluminium cations are present. Looking at the behaviour of Ferric Chloride, it can be argued that the
main mechanism controlling the coagulations process is adsorption. As for Aluminium Sulphate, the
dominant mechanism is electrostatic coagulation since higher values of turbidity were reached at
lower concentrations of aluminium cations. Changing the pH from 4 to 5 gave an overall lower
turbidity value, which indicates a shift in the predominate mechanism from electrostatic to adsorptive
coagulation for Aluminium Sulphate. After the optimal pH is reached, the turbidity values start to
increase due to the lower concentrations of the positively charged particles. At a pH value of 6 for
Aluminium Sulphate and 7 for Ferric Chloride, the turbidity values start to decrease. This is best
explained by the formations of principate. Precipitation coagulation favours high pH value in addition
to high coagulant concentrations, which makes the effect of precipitation more significant in figure 4
than it in figure 2.
This is probably because different coagulants depend on different mechanisms. Since the turbidly
decrease as the pH increase

Electrostatic coagulations play a role in increasing the pH value from day 1 to 2