Raw Water Treatment Plants: A Necessity For Clean Water - Essay Sample

Introduction

Clean water is a basic commodity in every society; therefore raw water treatment plant is a necessity in every society to meet the demand for clean water. The water treatment plants consist of integrated systems; raw water pretreatment, boiler feedwater treatment and the wastewater treatment. Pretreatment system is designed for solid removal through coagulation chambers followed by a clarifier. Following pretreatment, raw water is mixed with portable water and directed to the boiler feedwater system were about 99% of dissolved minerals are removed by; reverse osmosis, distillation and ion-exchange systems.

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An efficient water treatment plant removes turbidity, color, odors and other contaminants such as bacteria. Raw water contain silt and particulate matter, these particle contain electrostatic charges that cause repulsion of the particles hence limiting the interaction of the particles, the particles tend to be in a continuous motion without sticking together or flocculating. To neutralize the surface charges chemicals such as aluminium sulfate are added to make the particles sticky and they coalesce into flocs hence making them easily filtered out.

Automation of the plant is the introduction of control systems that open and close the valves, and control equipment in a sequence that ensures faster and absolute completion of certain plant processes. The automation system has to rely on signal from the control centers and the effect is starting or stopping certain process. The instruments, the devices are all connected to the motor control circuits. A detailed functional design specification should be made expounding on all the requirements and controls for each system to meet all the requirements. A device to control and monitor the system operation, (hardware) and programmes with control logics (software).

There is need to improve raw water treatment plants since they consume significant amount of energy.. A better technology to improve the production that is cost effective with minimal effects to the environments is crucial. Need for more clean water is increasing as the population increases with more developing industries in need for clean water and increasing sewer waste.

Automation of the systems improves the production since the processes are controlled at a faster rate than the manual systems. Also automated systems reduce the contamination that come along with the manual systems hence better quality and cost effective.

Reverse osmosis is another system that is efficient in removing dissolved ions. Its efficient in removing almost all dissolved solutes, use of reverse osmosis systems reduces boiler blowdown hence resulting in a reduced energy requirements and finally reduced cost of production. Water produced by reverse osmosis is of high purity, it can be used in processes that require mineral free water such as in pharmaceutical industries and microelectronics.

Technologies such as clarification, filtration, membrane separation, ion exchange and the hydrex chemicals are among the technologies used in raw water treatment plants. Clarification technology removes the particulate matter and the suspended solids from water. Clarification is mostly included in pretreatment process before purification. These process results in optimum space as well efficiency of the process which is faster. They are easy to expand, retrofit and adjust as production demand. Filtration is a technology that has been employed in water treatment for a long time. The technology is advancing and finer filter techniques are being employed hence able to filter micro particles and even bacteria. Membrane separation is another technology used to separate molecules and particles by use of membrane. The membranes are semi-permeable and the flow rate is dependent on concentration, pressure, and the temperature. This technology is used in desalination of sea water as well as brackish water in water treatment plant. The process include; microfiltration, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Ion exchange is another technology that is employed in water softening for household use. The process involves exchange of ions between the solution and ion resin in a reversible process.

Technology advancements are the only solution to the increasing demand for quality affordable clean water in the society. With the use of such technology such as automation of the plants increases clean water production by several folds, the systems are also able to control larger plants simultaneously therefore being very cost effective.

Reference

https://www.nap.edu/read/10135/chapter/4#30https://www.valleywater.org/your-water/water-quality/how-we-clean-your-water/water-treatment-plantshttps://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents/wastewater-guide.pdf

Chew, C. M., Aroua, M. K., & Hussain, M. A. (2018). Advanced process control for ultrafiltration membrane water treatment system. Journal of cleaner production, 179, 63-80.

Calderon, C. A., Cueva, M., Cuenca, N., Honores, A., Guaman, D., Jimenez, D., & Ramirez, C. (2018, June). Monitoring and automation of the water pumping and storage process applied to a water treatment plant. In 2018 13th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.