Optimum pollutant removal from wastewater is one of the main concerns of local authorities in areas affected by powerful storms or that are close to industrial facilities. Discharging the wastewater into the natural circuit as it is can cause severe problems. This is why it has to undergo a cleaning process prior to returning into rivers and streams. Fortunately, there are advanced solutions and state-of-the-art technologies that enable storm water filtration to an acceptable level of pollutants. This article takes a closer look at a few of these methods to remove various contaminants from water.
The first category of methods include physical processes such as settling and filtration. The settling of polluted water can be achieved through retention chambers and basins. These devices are usually buried underground, in order to save space and to take advantage of them even in narrow places, where there’s not enough room for a pond or surface basin.
Mechanical filtration implies that waste water or storm water is pumped into a water sieve that features a filtration system meant to separate sediment and other particles. Beware, though, this process doesn’t remove any germs or soluble metals from water, so you’ll need to apply further treatments in order to make it safe.
The photo-Fenton oxidation technology is one of the most popular methods of removing pollutants from water. It is also effective on cosmetic industry wastewater which is usually loaded with lots of residual organic pollutants. According to scientists, the optimum pollutant removal occurs at a pH value of 3, with H2O2 dose of 1 ml/l and 0.75 g/l fr Fe(II) and Fe(III). The ideal reaction time for maximum of effectiveness is 40 minutes. All these quantities and parameters have been thoroughly studied, in order to determine the optimum values.
Fenton’s oxidation process includes several mechanisms of action to clean wastewater: pH adjustment, oxidation reaction, neutralization and coagulation for precipitation. All these are very effective in the removal of organic substances from water. Of course, coagulation and precipitation will need to be followed by mechanical separation processes such as filtration and settling.
Fenton’s oxidation process is able to remove up to 95% of the pollutants. This is an excellent result, hence the popularity of this method among cosmetics manufacturers and other industrial facilities that use water in their production processes.
Oil and grease removal can be achieved with a pseudo-first order chemical reaction. Chemistry is nothing short of amazing. It enables us to remove soluble substances from wastewater, by taking advantage of various reactions occurring at molecular level.
When setting up a wastewater cleaning facility, you need to take into account all pollutants that may be present in that water, in order to determine the right methods and filtration processes to include in your plant. This is why such facilities require specialists in chemistry to ensure that the resulting water will be totally safe for the environment and for the living organisms in the neighborhood of the industrial facility discharging that water into the surrounding areas.
