Accelerated aggregation kinetics and hydrodynamic floc separation for municipal water treatment
Conferences & Talks

• Meng Lean, Presenter
• Ashutosh Kole
• Armin Volkel
• Norine Chang
• Jeonggi Seo
• Ben Hsieh
• Kai Melde

American Water Works Association (AWWA) Annual Conference and Exposition (ACE) 2009

16 June 2009
San Diego, California, USA

description

This paper reports on improvements to aggregation kinetics of colloidal particles in municipal water treatment by injection of selected aggregation accelerators as seed for rapid floc formation. A high throughput, continuous flow, hydrodynamic separation for membrane-less, size-selective particulate extraction has recently been reported. In addition to traditional centrifugal effects, the transverse flow driven by centrifugal force created in spiral flow channels result in transverse migration of micron-sized neutrally buoyant suspensions which are focused into a band and then diverted for extraction. The combined effects of the spiral mixer to generate denser and uniformly sized pin floc, accelerated floc growth, and the immediate spiral separation of the floc allows for elimination of flocculation and sedimentation steps, resulting in significant savings in reduced land and chemical cost, and faster processing time from raw to finished water.