Recommandé
Contenu connexe
Plus de Rick Nabett
Plus de Rick Nabett (20)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
The 5 steps of water purification
- 1. The 5 Steps of Water Purification Water scarcity is a real issue, with billions of people around the world lacking access to clean and safe water. Water purification plays an important role in ensuring access to safe drinking water and, therefore, can improve education, health, food security and poverty in developing countries. But it’s not just developing countries that can be helped – the need for water purification also arises in Sydney and remote Australian communities like Adelaide River, where, occasionally, both iron and manganese concentration levels make water unsafe to drink. We’ll explain the five steps involved in the process of purifying water. 1 Screening Screening removes the biggest obstacles from water coming from lakes or rivers, like wood, plants, fish and waste. It ensure that the facility can run at its best without large objects interfering or blocking gateways. 2 Coagulation By adding chemicals to the water, the nutrients and remaining solids can be removed. The chemicals create what is called floc, sticky particles that attract dirt, and the water flows on to a sedimentation basin. 3 Sedimentation In the sedimentation basin the water sits still and the floc accumulates dirt, which eventually gets heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the tank, in turn allowing it to be removed from the water before it flows through to filtration. 4 Filtration Whatever is still swimming in the water will be removed in the filtration stage, where water flows through layers of material like gravel, sand and charcoal. These layers are often quite deep to ensure the best level of filtration possible. The more layers used, and the finer the sand, the better the filtration. 5 Disinfection Once the water has run through all of the above, the only remaining step is disinfection. This makes the water truly drinkable, by removing all toxins. In this process chlorine is often added to remove bacteria, viruses and parasites. The chlorine is later neutralized by the addition of sodium bisulphite.