RAW WATER QUALITY:

Water is a unique substance and one of its unique characteristics is its capacity to dissolve a
variety of substances. As water moves through its cycle, called the hydrological cycle,
comprising of rainfall, runoff, infiltration, impounding, use and evaporation, it comes into
contact with many different substances that may be dissolved by the water to a greater or lesser
extent or that may be suspended in the water.
The substances of concern in water can be categorized in different ways, e.g. as dissolved or
suspended, as inorganic or organic, as macro or micro substances, as natural or synthetic
substances, suspensions of micro-organisms etc.

Dissolved substances:
Most substances are to a greater or lesser extent dissolved by water. Substances that
Oxygen (O2)
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Ammonia (NH3),
Inorganic compounds such as sodium chloride (NaCl)
Calcium-sulphate (CaSO4) and organic substances such as humid acids and carbohydrates.

The possibility to remove dissolved substances is by using advanced processes such as

reverse osmosis or activated carbon adsorption.

Suspended and colloidal substances:

In addition to the substances that are dissolved in water, some substances may not dissolve in
water but remain in suspension as very small suspended or colloidal particles. Suspended solids
are defined as solids that are relatively large and settle easily under quiescent conditions.
Suspended solids are normally determined by filtering the suspended solids from a water sample
of known mass, and determining the mass of the dried solids.

Colloidal particles on the other hand are too small to settle and they also carry an electrical
charge that prevents them from settling. They can actually remain in suspension for days without
settling.

Colloidal particles impart undesirable properties to water:

 Turbidity: can be readily removed from water by coagulation-flocculation and separation
 Odour
 Bacteria, viruses and micro-algae are also colloidal in nature.
 Certain complex organic compounds in treated industrial wastewater

CHEMICAL WATER QUALITY:

Dissolved organic and inorganic substances determine the chemical quality of water. For
example, some of these substances can be toxic (chromium, arsenic), while other cause the water
to be hard or scale forming (calcium carbonate), and other chemical compounds may affect the
taste and odour of the water (sodium chloride, geosmin).
A large range of inorganic chemical compounds can be present in water. These compounds such
as sodium chloride, NaCl and calcium sulphate, CaSO4 dissolve in water in the form of the
respective ions, i.e. , , and .

An indication of the general organic quality of the water can be obtained by means of the
determination of cumulative parameters such as:
 Total organic carbon (TOC)
 Dissolved organic carbon (DOC)
 Chemical oxygen demand (COD)
 Biological oxygen demand (BOD)

Other chemical water quality parameters

There are a number of collective water chemical parameters specific to water treatment. These
include alkalinity, hardness, chemical stability, free available – and combined chlorine species.

OVERVIEW OF WATER TREATMENT PROCESSES: block diagram

Purpose of a Multi-Media Filter (Multi Media Filter):

A multi-media filter is used to reduce the level of suspended solids (turbidity) in incoming feed
water. Suspended solid consists of small particles such as slit, clay, grit, organic matter, algae
and other microorganisms. Incoming feed water that is high in suspended solids can cause a
high-pressure drop and reduce the effectiveness of downstream filtration equipment such as
reverse osmosis membranes and ion exchange beds.

A well operated multimedia filtre can remove particultes down to 15-20 microns. A multi-media
filter that uses a coagulant addition (which induces tiby particles to join together to form
particles large enough to be filtred) can remove particulates down to 5-10 microns. To put this in
prespective,the width of a human hair is around 50 microns
ACTIVATED CARBON FILTERS:

The Activated carbon Filters are designed to remove free chlorine, organic matter, odour and
Colour present in the raw water and waste water.

Due to its high degree of micro porosity, activated carbons provide a huge surface area.
Activated carbon filter operates through adsorption. Adsorption is directly related to the surface
area of the media. This great surface area furnishes a huge adsorption area for organic as well as
chlorine molecules to attach themselves.

The Activated Carbon Filters consist of Activated carbon granules supported by very fine quartz
filter media. Various grades of carbon are available for specialized treatments.

Filtration is the most frequently used, robust method to remove suspended solids from water. The
Filter consists of a multiple layer of sand/ Filter Media with a variety in size and specific gravity.
The Filters are designed to remove turbidity and suspended particles present in the feed water
with minimum pressure drop.
Softener:
Hard water is water that contains certain naturally occurring minerals, particularly magnesium
and calcium. Hard water causes many problems in a home, including deposits in sinks and
bathtubs and gummed-up pipes in home plumbing systems and water-using appliances.
Softening water will extend the life of these pipes and appliances and improve the efficiency of
plant.

How do water softeners work?

Water softeners replace unwanted magnesium and calcium ions with sodium ions, which have
none of the negative effects of hard water. To do this, hard water runs through a bed of small
plastic beads that have sodium ions attached to them. As the water flows through, the sodium
ions—which also occur naturally in water—are released into the water and are replaced with the
magnesium and calcium ions on the resin beads.

Why do water softeners need regeneration?

Eventually, the beads in a water softener contain nothing but calcium and magnesium ions and
stop being effective. To refresh the system, water softeners periodically go through a process
known as regeneration. In regeneration, a brine solution of sodium chloride—made from salt
pellets or block salt—is flushed through the system, which replaces all calcium and magnesium
in the system with sodium. The calcium and magnesium, along with the remaining brine, is then
drained into the home waste water system.
RO FILTER:
How does Reverse Osmosis work?
Reverse osmosis works by using a high pressure pump to increase the pressure on the salt side of
the RO and force the water across the semi--‐permeable RO membrane, leaving almost all
(around 95% to 99%) of dissolved salts behind in the reject stream. The amount of pressure
required depends on the salt concentration of the feed water. The more concentrated the feed
water, the more pressure is required to overcome the osmotic pressure. In very simple terms, feed
water is pumped into a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system and you end up with two types of water
coming out of the RO system: good water and bad water. The good water that comes out of an
RO system has the majority of contaminants removed and is called permeate. Another term for
permeate water is product water – they mean the same thing. Permeate is the water that was
pushed through the RO membrane and contains very little contaminants. The ‘bad’ water is the
water that contains all of the contaminants that were unable to pass through the RO membrane
and is known as the concentrate, reject, or brine. All three terms (concentrate, reject, and brine)
are used interchangeably and mean the same thing. Below is a simple schematic that shows how
an RO system works. As the feed water enters the RO membrane under pressure (enough
pressure to overcome osmotic pressure) the water molecules pass through the semi--‐permeable
membrane and the salts and other contaminants are not allowed to pass and are discharged
through the concentrate stream, which goes to drain or can be fed back into the feed water supply
in some circumstances to be recycled through the RO system to save water. The water that
makes it through the RO membrane is called permeate or product water and usually has around
95% to 99% of the dissolved salts removed from it.

Reverse Osmosis is capable of removing up to 99%+ of the dissolved salts (ions), particles,
colloids, organics, bacteria and pyrogens from the feed water (although an RO system should not
be relied upon to remove 100% of bacteria and viruses). An RO membrane rejects contaminants
based on their size and charge. Any contaminant that has a molecular weight greater than 200 is
likely rejected by a properly running RO system. Likewise, the greater the ionic charge of the
contaminant, the more likely it will be unable to pass through the RO membrane. For example, a
sodium ion has only one charge (monovalent) and is not rejected by the RO membrane as well as
calcium for example, which has two charges. Likewise, this is why an RO system does not
remove gases such as CO2 very well because they are not highly ionized (charged) while in
solution and have a very low molecular weight. Because an RO system does not remove gases,
the permeate water can have a slightly lower than normal pH level depending on CO2 levels in
the feed water as the CO2 is converted to carbonic acid.
EDI:

High purity water production has traditionally used a combination of membrane separation and
ion exchange processes. EDI is a process which combines semi-impermeable membrane
technology with ion-exchange media to provide a high efficiency demineralization process.
Electro dialysis employ electrical current and specially-prepared membranes which are semi
permeable to ions based on their charge, electrical current, and ability to reduce the ions based to
their charge. Through electro dialysis an electrical potential transports and segregates charged
aqueous species. The electrical current is used to continuously regenerate the resin, eliminating
the need for periodical regeneration The EDI process produces industrial process water of very
high purity, using less than 95% of the chemical products used in the conventional ion exchange
processes. With EDI system membranes and electricity replace the million gallons of acid and
caustic chemicals that the old processes required daily.
How does it work?
An EDI stack has the basic structure of a deionization chamber. The chamber contains a ion
exchange resin, packed between a cationic exchange membrane and a anionic exchange
membrane. Only the ions can pass through the membrane, the water is blocked.
When flow enters the resin filled diluting compartment, several processes are set in motion.
Strong ions are scavenged out of the feed stream by the mixed bed resins. Under the influence of
the strong direct current field applied across the stack of components, charged ions are pulled off
the resin and drawn towards the respective, oppositely-charged electrodes. In this way these
charged strong-ion species are continuously removed and transferred in to the adjacent
concentrating compartments.
As the ions go towards the membrane, they can pass through the concentration chamber (see
figure) but they cannot reach the electrode. They are blocked by the contiguous membrane that
contains a resin with the same charge.

As the strong ions are removed from the process stream, the conductivity of the stream becomes
quite low. The strong, applied electrical potential splits water at the surface of the resin beads,
producing hydrogen and hydroxyl ions. These act as continuous regenerating agents of the ion-
exchange resin. These regenerated resins allow ionization of neutral or weakly-ionized aqueous
species such as carbon dioxide or silica. Ionization is followed by removal through the direct
current and the ion exchange membranes.
The ionization reactions occurring in the resin in hydrogen or hydroxide forms for the removal of
weakly ionized compounds are listed below:
CO2 + OH- ==> HCO3-
HCO3- + OH- ==> CO32-
SiO2 + OH- ==> HSiO3-
H3BO3 + OH- ==> B(OH)4-
NH3 + H+ ==> NH4+
General chemical reactions for water treatment:
A general chemical reaction is one in which no oxidation-reduction reaction takes place. An
example of a general reaction in water treatment is the addition of a coagulant such as ferric
chloride to water. The ferric chloride reacts with the water and forms certain products. The
reaction can be represented by the following equation:
FeCl3 + 3H2O → Fe(OH)3↓.+ 3HCl
The HCl is a strong acid and will react with the alkalinity in the water represented as calcium
bicarbonate:
2HCl + Ca(HCO3)2 → CaCl2 + 2H2O + 2CO2

Similar equations can be written for other coagulants. For aluminium sulphate (Alum, Al2(SO4)3 .
18 H2O ): This indicates that the 18 molecules of water are attached to the Al2(SO4)3 but do not
participate in the chemical reaction. The water molecules must, however, be taken into account
when a solution of Al2(SO4)3 with a specific concentration is prepared.
Al2(SO4)3 . 18 H2O + 3Ca(HCO3)2 → 2Al(OH)3 + 3CaSO4 + 6CO2 + 18 H2O

For hydrated lime Ca(OH)2 :

Ca(HCO3)2 + Ca(OH)2 → 2CaCO3 + 2H2O
These balanced equations provide information on what happens during the chemical reactions
and they can be used to calculate different items such as such as the mass of calcium carbonate
consumed as a result of a certain dosage of ferric chloride, or the mass of ferric hydroxide sludge
produced in the reaction. It must be noted however, that the equations given above are actually
simplified representations since there are different intermediate species formed during the
reactions depending on conditions such as pH.

Acids such as HCl and H2SO4 are termed strong acids and dissociate completely when added to
water.
HCl H+ + Cl-
This means that when HCl is added to water, there is virtually no HCl in solution, only
H+ and Cl-.
However acids such as carbonic acid (H2CO3) and acetic acid (CH3COOH) are weak ggggacids
and dissociate only partially when added to water.
H2CO3 ↔ H+ + HCO3
-