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Discussion on Cost Saving Coagulation/Flocculation Process

Save at least 20% annually on cost of flocculating chemicals, not including savings on the related labor costs and the slag removal expenses Introduction

Many reputable water treatment facilities have tried using different flocculating chemicals towards finding the most effective solution for removal of particles form source water.

There are many types of flocculants available for use in drinking water treatment process. The flocculants can be divided in two large groups:

1. Hydrolyzing metallic salts
2. Pre-Hydrolyzed metallic salts
3. Synthetic cationic polymers

In addition, various additives can be added to aid in the coagulation and flocculation process. Each chemical has benefits and drawbacks, and is suitable in specific circumstances. Read more about coagulation/flocculation chemicals and their comparisons.

Whatever flocculants a drinking water treatment facility uses within their water treatment processes, every flocculating chemical has significantly different efficiency in attracting inorganic particles vs. organic particles: some flocculating materials attract organic particles significantly more efficiently whereas some other flocculating materials attract inorganic particles significantly more efficiently. There are fundamental scientific reasons explaining the above phenomenon. Please contact R&D Innovative Solutions Inc. for more information.

Taking in consideration that some flocculating chemicals are relatively very expensive and not necessarily have superior efficiency in attracting particles comparably to basic flocculating chemicals (i.e. alum), it takes drinking water treatment facilities significant efforts and financial resources to identify the best flocculating chemicals satisfying the specific requirements of a particular water treatment facility. In the end, very often (and sometimes following a few- or several years' process of attempting to identify the best flocculating chemicals) the drinking water treatment facility) uses just one or few flocculating chemicals in their daily practice.

Until Innosol instrumentation technology had been developed, there was no commercially available technology to in-situ access concentration, size, and certain other properties of organic and inorganic suspended solids and semi-solids in large volumes of water. For example, using the data on concentration, size, and type of particles in water produced by Innosol-WTF instrument, drinking water treatment facilities are able to mix (manually or automatically) two or more (if desired) flocculating chemicals in the proportion corresponding to the ratio of organic/inorganic particles of certain dimensions range in source water, where the first flocculating chemical (in this example) has significantly higher efficiency in attracting organic particles in water while the second flocculating chemical (in this example) has significantly higher efficiency in attracting inorganic particles in water. Thus, efficiency of the entire flocculating process significantly increases resulting in substantial savings.

It has been demonstrated that through implementing Innosol-WTF instrumentation into water flocculation process, a large reputable water treatment facility which follows the best manufacturing practices and equipped with the best commercially available equipment can save, very conservatively, at least 20% annually on the cost of flocculating chemicals, plus the savings on the related labor’s costs and the slag removal expenses. As a good reference, the said savings for a drinking water treatment facility serving the population of 1mln. can save at least $250,000 as described above. Often, smaller drinking water treatment facilities cannot afford equipment and manufacturing practices used by large facilities. Therefore, smaller drinking water treatment facilities through implementing Innosol-WTF instrumentation into water flocculation process would typically save, very conservatively, more than 25% annually on cost of flocculating chemicals, plus the savings on the related labor costs and the slag removal expenses. Please contact R&D Innovative Solutions for more information on all the above.