Relevant Arguments Regarding the Flocculation Technology - Assignment Example

Environmental Engineering Report- Flocculation The prime intent of this assignment is to make relevant arguments regarding the flocculationtechnology in the modern day context as an environmental engineering mechanism is to improve the water. The necessity, importance and entire process of flocculation have been taken into concern in this particular report. Moreover, from the discussion it can also be affirmed that the probability of error remains in the process of flocculation. In this regard the due consideration should be placed for judging the importance of flocculation while providing the pure drinkable water to the inhabitants. Proper designing, construction, and minimizing mechanisms are essential for protecting the environment and thus, the process of flocculation is regarded as a significant environment engineering techniques that helps to provide purified water. Thus, the report postulates that the flocculation technology is one of the superior environmental engineering processes to reduce the perilous and harmful substances that are generally present in the water, but the chance of errors remain in the process due to utilization ineffective chemicals. 1. INTRODUCTION Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering technology in order to respond to the challenges imposed to the environment. Besides, with the growing population, the extensive land-uses, modernization of technology, increasing operational activities and other factors has led to a significant threat to the environment. However, through this growing concern various environmental engineers are engaged in the activities to develop and provide most noteworthy and technical solutions in order to effectively deal and resolve the environmental problem and issues through the optimum utilization of necessary resources. The main object of the environmental engineering is to improve the condition of the natural environment through providing healthy air, water and land supporting the human habitation as well as a prospering ecosystem. In this regards the flocculation is an indigenous engineering mechanism to treat the wastewater. This mechanism is used to neutralize as well as aggregate the various ‘colloidal particles’ that are present in the water. Moreover, this mechanism is utilized to reduce the hazardous substances, color, phosphorous, organic substances, and metal traces including iron, chromium and manganese present in the water. Moreover, due the significant characteristics of colloidal suspension present in the water, it is difficult to separate through the conventional methods, including filtration or settling unless it has been gathered through coagulation. Flocculation process enables the user to destabilized particles that are actually incorporated into larger aggregates in order to separate it from the wastewater and provide living organisms with safe drinkable water (Shon et al. 2007). With this concern, this document addresses the importance of flocculation as well as the process in which it works and the chances of error in deducting and segregating the hazardous particles using the process. 2. FUNDAMENTALS OF FLOCCULATION 2.1. Flocculation Importance Water consists of various impurities, which are easily dissolved in it and are often difficult to identify from the naked eyes. The dissolved and suspended particles in the water are of different size, shape, density and composition. Purification is thus necessary to provide living organism healthy and safe life. Various methods through which the surface water is purified, flocculation is one of them. The process of the Flocculation allows separating the suspended and harmful particles from the water. The flocculation process is an important mechanism through which turbidity is removed from the surface water. Additionally, turbidity is a term to the cloudy manifestation in the water, which occurs due to the various particles that are harmful and suspended in it. Flocculation process is important in removing turbidity from water. Moreover, flocculation in very much important because the physical as well as the chemical process associated with flocculation are most significant mechanism in eliminating harmful materials or particles that usually makes water as a colloidal solution. The process is equally important as it allows user to add flocculating agents into the water to purify the water. Colloidal solution is a heterogeneous mixture in which the colloidal particles cannot be seen by eyes. Swimming pool water and wastewater contains visible sediments (Fatombi et al. 2011). In this context, Rebhun, Meir, and Laor (1998), added that the flocculating process allows a novel water treatment to remove the contaminants through the drinking water. Moreover, the technology is also important to reduce the toxicity in the industrial wastewater (Rebhun et al. 1998). TYPES AND PROCESSES OF FLOCCULATION As stated above flocculation is a process of stimulation through the mechanical means to remove destabilized particles in the form of compact, ‘fast settleable particles’ (or flocs). The process has been broadly divided into two types, i.e. ‘perikinetic’ and ‘orthokinetic’. Perikinetic flocculation is that form of flocculation when ‘Brownian motion’ from the colloidal particles arises. On the other hand, ‘Orthokinetic flocculation’ refers to contracts of colloidal particles forming through the motion of bulk fluid such as stirring. The three processes in flocculation include flash mix, coagulation, and flocculation. In this context, the study concluded that the flocculation process is effective in removing the pharmaceuticals including ‘clofibric acid’, ‘bezafibrate’, ‘diclofenac’ and ‘carbamazepine’ that were present in the water (Ternes et al. 2002). In the first stage, a flash mixer is added into the water, which is a ‘coagulant chemicals’. The main reason behind such an act is to dissolve chemical in the water. Flash mixing last for and around a minute and if water is not mixed adequately within the thirty second, the chemical will not dissolve properly. In this context, if water takes more than a minute to mix, than the blades of the mixer will trim floc into several tiny particles. Moreover, after the composition of flash mixing, the process of coagulation occurs. In this stage, the ‘coagulant chemical’ neutralizes particle through electrical charges into water, which further allows particles to group together and form large masses. Flocculation is the end stage of an entire process in which a gentle mixing allows the fine particles that are formed by the coagulation into each other contract. The entire process takes around thirty to forty-five minutes to complete. Moreover, there are various compartments in the flocculation basin, which helps to diminish the speed of water advancement through the flocculation basin. Besides, the compartmentalized chamber enables to form large floc exclusive of broken apart through the mixing blades (Ternes et al. 2002). 2.3. ERROR CHANCES IN FLOCCULATION The flocculation process includes utilizing the wide ranges of chemicals in order to clear the raw water, thus the effectiveness of the process highly depended on the utilization of the proper chemical in the entire process. Error possibly occurs due to the drawbacks in the chemical used in the process of flocculation. In this context, the evaluation of the chemical is most effective under the guided regime which requires considering certain parameters such Dissolved Organic Carbon, (DOC) and color. Additionally, in order to minimize turbidity in the process, generally the experiment is carried out using jar tests. Therefore, the efficiency of the success in the process is highly dependent on the ‘coagulant and flocculant dosage’ and pH applied in the treatment (Lardon et al. 2009). Moreover, the use of small volume of the water jar increases the chances of error. Likewise, the settling time in the jar test is one of the most significant reason behind the occurrence of the error and it arises because in most of the scenario of the flocculation process when the settling time is often become too lengthy. Thus, in the entire experimental process settling time needs to consider in a very careful manner. Additionally, various additives play an important role in the flocculation process. This additive helps to accelerate the entire process through providing support to the floc in order to make filter easier. Thus, the selection of these additive chemicals lead to errors in the process, as natural polymers is less expensive polymer and is less efficient as compared to the synthetic polymer (Lardon et al. 2009). CONCLUSION It can be comprehended from the above discussion that environmental engineering is important engineering principles that utilizes science as well as the engineering mechanisms to solve the problem related to the environmental degradation. It applies the concept of engineering to protect the environment such as the water, soil and air from various harmful effects. Notably, proper designing, construction, and minimizing mechanisms are used to protect the environment. On the other hand, flocculation is one among such environment engineering techniques that significantly helps purify water through removing the turbidity sediments and other material from the water. The removal of various hazardous materials is done through adding flocculating agents into the water. Three steps are involved in the flocculation process. The end result of the flocculation process is purified water were the all turbidity substances are gathered in the floc. Moreover, sometimes errors arise in the process flocculation process due to use of various chemicals during the process. Thus, the flocculation technology is determined to be a superior environmental engineering process to reduce the perilous and harmful substances, phosphorous, organic substances and metal traces like iron, chromium and manganese that are generally present in the surface water. REFERENCES Fatombi, Jacques K., Jean-Aimé Mbey, Taofiki Aminou, Bruno Lartiges, Nikita Topanou, Odile Barres and Roger G. Josse. (2011). “Flocculation of kaolinite suspensions in water by coconut cream casein.” Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 3, 918-924. Lardon, Laurent, Arnaud Hélias, Bruno Sialve, Jean-Philippe Steyer and Olivier Bernard. (2009). “Life-cycle assessment of biodiesel production from microalgae”. Environ. Sci. Technol, 43(17), 6475-6481. Rebhun, M., S. Meir and Y. Laor. (1998). “Using dissolved humic acid to remove hydrophobic contaminants from water by complexation-flocculation process.” Environ. Sci. Technol, 32(7), 981-986. Shon, H. K., S. Vigneswaran, S. Kim, J. Cho, G. J. Kim, J. B. Kim and J.-H. Kim. (2007). “Preparation of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) from sludge produced by Titanium Tetrachloride (TiCl4) flocculation of wastewater.” Environ. Sci. Technol, 41(4), 1372-1377. Ternes, Thomas A., Martin Meisenheimer, Derek Mcdowell, Frank Sacher, Heinz-Ju Rgen Brauch, Brigitte Haist-Gulde, Gudrun Preuss, Uwe Wilme and Ninette Zulei-Seibert. (2002). “Removal of pharmaceuticals during drinking water treatment.” Environ. Sci. Technol, 36(17), 3855-3863. Read More