Chemical

treatment in
wastewater
Course content:
• Why Chemical treatment in wastewater
• Coagulants in wastewater treatment
• Flocculants in wastewater treatment
• Selection of the best chemical treatment program
• Case studies in different industries
Why Chemical treatment in wastewater?

Chemical treatment of wastewater uses chemical

reactants to break down and remove pollutants.

It is ideal for wastewater with high chemical toxin

contents, such as wastewater from chemical or
pharmaceutical manufacturing, pump and paper
mills, laboratories, and textile manufacturers.
Which Types of Pollutants Do Chemical
Wastewater Treatments Remove?
Which Types of Pollutants Do Chemical
Wastewater Treatments Remove?
• Antifreeze: Antifreeze is common in wastewater from automotive
manufacturing or repair shops and industries that use heavy
machinery requiring antifreeze.
• Dyes: Wastewaters from pulp and paper mills and textile
manufacturing contain the dyes used to color the paper or fabrics.
• Paints and solvents: Paints often come from manufacturing
industries that use paints and varnishes to finish their projects.
Solvents in wastewater may come from the processes used to clean
and polish the products for consumer use or the cleaning
procedures used on equipment after production is complete. They
may also come from the solvents used to break down harder
materials like wood into pulp.
• Metal residues: Metal residues found in wastewater often include
aluminum, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc.
Coagulation and flocculation
 Chemical Coagulation/Flocculation
• In water treatment, coagulation and flocculation are
practically always applied subsequently before a physical
separation.
The Coagulation-Flocculation process consists of the
following steps:

1. Coagulation-flocculation: The use of chemical reagents

to destabilize and increase the size of the particles;
mixing; increasing of flog size,
2. A physical separation of the solids from the liquid phase.
This separation is usually achieved by sedimentation
(decantation), flotation or filtration.
Coagulation:
• Coagulation is the step where colloidal particles (similar to
spheres of a diameter of less than 1 micrometer) are destabilized.
Basic principle of coagulation:
• Coagulation comes from the latin word « coagulare » which
means « to agglomerate ». In water treatment, coagulation is the
result of the addition of chemical reagents to water suspensions
where the dispersed colloidal particles are assembled in larger
aggregates called flocs or microflocs.
• Coagulation is an intermediary step, but it is essential to the
physico-chemical treatment process of water and wastewater.
This is the first step in the elimination of colloidal particles and its
main function is to destabilize the particles. This destabilization is
essentially the neutralization of the electrical charge present on
the surface of the particle thus facilitating the agglomeration of
the colloids.
Colloidal particles:
• Colloids are insoluble particles suspended in water. Their
small size (less than 1 micron) makes the particles extremely
stable.
They can have different origins :
1. Mineral: silt, clays, silica, hydroxides and metallic salts...
2. Organic: humic and fulvic acids, color, surfactants…
Note: Micro-organisms such as bacteria, plankton, algae,
viruses are also considered as colloids.
 Coagulation mechanism:
• The stability and consequently the instability of suspended
particles is a factor of different attraction and repulsion forces:
● Van der Waals forces
● Electrostatic forces
● Universal attraction
● Brownian notion of Coagulation is both a physical and a
chemical process.
 Coagulation mechanism:
The reactions between particles and coagulants will allow the formation of
aggregates and their subsequent sedimentation.
Cationic coagulants neutralize the negative charge of colloids and form a
spongy mass called microflocs.
The coagulation mechanism can be summarized in two steps:
1- Charge neutralization: this corresponds to the lowering of the electrical
charges that have a repulsion effect on the colloids.
2- Aggregation of the particles.
Coagulants:
• There are two major coagulant types in use today:
1 - Mineral coagulants: These are mainly based on Iron salts
(FeCl3, Fe(SO4)2, …) or Aluminium salts (PAC, Alum, …). They
are the most frequently used coagulants.
• The cationic charge is brought by the metallic ions, Fe 3+ or
Al3+ that will form Iron hydroxydes Fe(OH)3 or Aluminium
hydroxydes Al(OH)3.
• The main advantages of such coagulants are their universal
range of application and low price.
 2-Organic coagulants:
• The cationic charge is brought by a quartenary ammonium
function fixed on a long polymer chain.
• Four main organic coagulant families are present on the
market today :
● Polyamines
● Polydadmac
● Dicyandiamide resins
● Melamine-formaldehyde resins
The main advantages are a lower dosage and a lower volume of
sludge produced (no hydroxydes). Also, these coagulants do not
affect the pH or the Titration for Hardness (TH).
2-Organic coagulants:
3-Blends of mineral and organic coagulants
These blends bring, in a single commercial product, the advantages of
both organic and mineral coagulants.
The most frequent mineral coagulant used in these blends is PAC.
flocculation
Flocculation:
• Flocculation is the step where destabilized colloidal particles
(or the particles formed during the coagulation step) are
assembled into aggregates.
• Basic principle of flocculation: The flocculation step can only
operate on water/wastewater where the particles are
already destabilized. It is the logical step following
coagulation.
Flocculation:
Destabilized particles:
• The origin of destabilized particles is various and depends
mainly on the origin of the water to be treated. They can
come from an initial coagulation step. The charge (+ or -)
brought by the flocculant will be selected according to the
nature of destabilized particles in the water.
In general, the selection follows the pattern below :
✓Anionic flocculant (-) for mineral particles
✓Cationic flocculant (+) for organic particles
Flocculation mechanism:
• Flocculants, with their very high molecular weights (long
monomer chain ) and their charge content, fix the
destabilized particles and aggregates along the polymer
chain.
• There follows, during the flocculation step, an increase in the
size of the particles present in the water phase resulting in
the formation of flocs.
• The type of bonds between the destabilized particles and the
flocculant are mainly ionic bonds and hydrogen bonds.
Flocculants:
1 - Anionic and Non-Ionic flocculants that bring negative (-)
charges to the media.
• Different commercial forms are available :
● Solid form
● Emulsion form
2 - Cationic flocculants that bring positive (+)
charges to the media.
• Different commercial forms exist :
● Solid form
● Emulsion form
Classifications of polymers
Classifications of polymers
Selection of the best chemical treatment program
Selection of Chemical Species.
• There are three fundamental variables in water treatment, all
three of which will have a significant influence on the type of
chemical that could be usefully employed in a particular
application.
• 1) Raw Water Quality.
• 2) Process Equipment.
• 3) Treatment Objectives.
Jar test
 Selection of Coagulant
• The first step is to select the coagulant of choice and make an
estimation of the optimum dosage.
• The selection of a coagulant and its optimum dosage is made by
a combination of observations and measurements.
• The objective is to generate a "pin-floc" that coagulates the
hydrophobic mineral turbidity and the hydrophilic organic
colour.
• The DOC loading is often the determining factor for both
coagulant choice and dosage.
• pH depression should also be factored into the initial thoughts
 Selection of a Flocculant
• Once the coagulant and its optimum dosage have been
determined the same procedure can be followed to determine
whether or not a flocculant shows some benefits.
Case studies in different industries
metals industry –high COD
Petrochemicals-industry
Paper industry
Textiles and dyes industry
Petrochemicals industry