Victoria Chou and Yining Dai
Abstract:
Flocculators are an integral part of the water treatment process. Thefocculation process turns the colloidal matter within water into flocs that will eventually be removed through the sedimentation process. The creation and eventual settling of flocs formed in the flocculator results in cleaner, clearer water. According to Swetland et al.'s hypothesis, flocs that reach a certain size are no longer effective in removing colloids be- cause the shear on the surface of the flocs becomes too high for the colloids to attach. Thus, by breaking large flocs, they may regrow and scavenge additional small colloids that were not able to settle out from the suspension. The purpose of this series of experiments is to continue testing the Floc Breakup Theory and, if valid, to determine the most effective way to break up flocs in order to have the highest removal rate of colloidal particles. The settled water turbidity analyzer (SWaT), a new turbidity measurement system, was designed and implemented for the Spring 2014 research, in which the effluent water first travels through an angled tube settler with continuous ow before being analyzed by the effluent turbidimeter. A base case test was run to serve as a control showing residual turbidity with the new turbidity measurement system. Adjustments to the new setup were made to accommodate for issues that arose from the new turbidity measurement system.
