Water Treatment Process
Identifying the Stages

There is definitely a good reason why you need to settle for a water treatment process: you can never trust water these days.

With water pollution damaging not only the various bodies of water but even your sewage system, there is no way that you can actually allow bacteria, viruses, pathogens, chemicals, as well as large particles from entering into your home through your faucet.

When you talk about the water treatment processes, there are many of them. Here are some of the stages when it comes to "cleaning" your water:

Preliminary Treatment

The pretreatment is the first stage involved in most of the water treatment processes. At this point, the water is basically readied before it undergoes the primary treatment procedure.

Also, in the preliminary treatment, particles such as sticks, leaves, debris, and rocks are removed from the water through the use of screens. Chemicals, on the other hand, are usually added to prevent the development of algae.

Coagulation

This is normally the second stage in the treatment process of water.

In coagulation, your main goal is to get rid of the small particles that can be composed of silt, microbes, and other suspended materials.

You can make use of chemicals known as alum, which are then mixed immediately with water in a huge basin. The purpose of the chemical is to become a coagulating agent, which, in turn, makes removing these what used to be smaller particles much easier to filter or screen.

Flocculation

The floc, or the coagulated particles, would begin to become dense and heavy, thus, submerging into the water. This is the time where the water treatment process may become stalled as the stage proves to be quite slow.

Nevertheless, once everything has already settled at the bottom portion of the tank, you can then proceed to the next stage.

Clarification or Sedimentation

You may have got rid of the large particles and even the microbes at the early stages of the treatment process, but what you are not aware of is the fact that there are still impurities that could settle and even stick into the basin.

At clarification or sedimentation stage, you get rid of the sludge, or those residues that could have accumulated at the bottom part of your huge basin by allowing water to run free. To ensure that you can fully get rid of it, you can scrape them.

Softening of Water and Stabilization

There is a tendency that your water is not only made up of silts, gravel, and other particles, but also of certain minerals. Commonly, these include magnesium and calcium, which can actually make your water extremely hard.

They may not actually damage yourself, but they can cause huge problems for your water pipes and decrease the efficiency of detergents and soaps during laundry and dishwashing. The process of water treatment should not remove them either, or else, your pipes can corrode because of soft water.

What you can do is to at least achieve stability in your water treatment process. If there is too much calcium or other minerals, try to remove them from your water.

If it has become too soft, add the minerals. You will know the hardness of your minerals through a procedure called Hach titration.

Filtration

It is normal for water to be turbid. This means that they generally look cloudy because of the suspended materials. They can range from microorganisms, precipitates of minerals, and silt, to name a few.

You need to filter your water so you can be able to separate the suspended materials during the water treatment process.

Related article: Ozone Water Treatment Systems - Benefits Of The Newest Purification Technology

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