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Design aspects of hydraulic flocculators

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 I WATER TREATMENT: MC CONNACHIE, MTAWALI and YOUNG

20th WEDC Conference Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1994

AFFORDABLE WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION
Design aspects of hydraulic flocculators
G. McConnachie and A. Mtawali and R. Young, UK, Malawi.

SINCE 1992 the Civil Engineering Departments of the Alum coagulant was used for 70 test runs, at 85 mg/l for
Universities of Edinburgh and Malawi have been collabo- high kaolin concs. and 50 mg/l for low concs. M.oleifera
rating on investigations of hydraulic flocculation in the was used for 12 tests, all for high kaolin, at dosages
treatment of turbid surface waters. established from jar tests. Coagulant was added by drip
Laboratory studies have been carried out at Edinburgh feed at the flow inlet. In addition, where noted in Fig.4 as
with field studies based at Thyolo water treatment works “stirrer”, a turbine-bladed stirrer agitated the mixture at
in Malawi. The system layouts for the two sites are shown the inlet, or, alternatively, where noted as “injection”, the
in Fig.1. Aluminium sulphate (alum) coagulant and the coagulant was added to the raw water inlet pipe 300mm
natural coagulant Moringa oleifera Lam. (M.oleifera) have before its end with wire mesh inserted into the pipe over
been used following earlier evaluations (McConnachie, this length to increase agitation.
1993, Sutherland et al, 1993 & 1993) After steady-state conditions were reached the flow
was stopped within the flocculator and the floc allowed to
settle, with samples being taken after 10 and 30 minutes
Test procedure at Edinburgh settling from 20mm below the surface at positions equiva-
Synthetic river water was formed from tap water with lent to flow retention times of 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 minutes.
added kaolin (200 mg/l for “low” turbidity and 666 mg/ The turbidity of the samples was measured directly in
l for “high” turbidity) + 200 mg/l Na2HCO3 (for 2 meq/ normalised turbidity units (NTU).
l alkalinity to promote aluminium hydroxide floc) + It should be noted that residual turbidity values have
0.0334 ml conc acetic acid per 1000 l of water (for pH of been used for assessing the efficiency of flocculation
7±0.2). Flow to the flocculator was 30 or 40 l/min at which give comparative rather than absolute results as
temperatures of 15, 20, or 28oC for 4 flocculator bed slopes the nature of the floc in size and strength, which will affect
(1 in 40, 48, 60, and 120) and various arrangements of the its removal in subsequent stages such as passing through
baffle types shown in Fig.2 as listed in Table 1. a settling tank or sand filters, was not evaluated.

Figure 1. General layout of flocculators at Edinburgh and Thyolo.

a) Sectional elevation b) Plan

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better results in terms of percentage residual turbidity as

shown by the broken lines. The Fig. shows that for any test
the retention time in the flocculator should be between 20
and 25 minutes.
The poorest results for both high and low initial turbidity
come from no baffles and arrangement 5 with no baffles
in the first 30 channels. (For the flow of 30 l/min channel
30 is reached after approximately 12 minutes). There
appears to be no advantage in having strong baffling
(type 4) beyond the 12 min retention zone although some
baffling (type 2) improves the high turbidity results.
Fig.4 shows the results using M.oleifera as coagulant.
Moringa floc tends to be less dense than that from alum
giving lower settling efficiency and residual values of the
order of two times the alum values. Error bounds are
±0.4%. Best results came from the use of increased agita-
tion at the coagulant mixing zone with the injection
method appearing to be an improvement over mechani-
cal fast stirring. Retention time between 20 and 25 min-
utes would appear to be adequate with the overall re-
sidual turbidity reducing by only 0.4% or so for an extra
5 minutes. The effect of baffles is not clear cut and further
testing is necessary.
The LDA results shown in Fig.5 are for the horizontal
velocity fluctuations only. The strongest surging comes
Figure 2. Baffle types. from the baffle with 40% of its area blanked off (type 4).
The mesh baffle (type 3) gives relatively uniform values
over the depth for the distances shown as might be
To assess the relative turbulence created by the baffles
expected. Direct relationship to flocculation efficiency
laser-Doppler anemometry (LDA) was used to measure
awaits completion of LDA measurements.
horizontal and vertical flow velocities and corresponding
velocity fluctuations at 10mm steps downstream from
each of the three baffle types at five depths and at six Pilot plant tests at Thyolo
points across the width of a 75mm wide channel for a flow
A range of standard water quality parameters has been
rate of 100 l/min. At each location the average of over
examined during the pilot scale studies. Here, however,
80000 readings taken over 1 minute has been recorded
treatment efficiency has been recorded solely in terms of
and for each level the average values across the width are
reduction in turbidity. Raw water turbidities ranged
shown in Fig.5 along with values for no baffle in place.
from 130 NTU to 1060 NTU with the majority of runs
being carried out at an initial turbidity of approximately
Test results at Edinburgh 200 NTU. Coagulant dosage was in the range 50 - 150 mg/
Fig.3 shows mean values from pairs of tests with alum as l as found from jar tests on the raw water.
coagulant under different baffling arrangements as de- The mixing tank is 880mm long, 250mm wide and
tailed in Table 1. Error bounds are typically ±0.2%. The 400mm deep, with a V-notch weir for flow rate measure-
higher initial kaolin in the raw water produces relatively ment. Coagulant was added into the nappe of the dis-

Table 1. Details of baffle arrangements for the Edinburgh flocculator.

Baffle arrangement no. Type of baffle (see Fig. 2) - symmetrically spaced along channels

1 Channels 2 to 30: 2 no. type 1 + chs. 31-60: 3 no. type 2

2 Chs. 2 to 30: 2 no. type 1 + chs. 31-45: 1 no. type 3 + chs. 46-60: 1 no. type 2
3 Chs. 2 to 30: 2 no. type 1
4 Chs. 2 to 30: 2 no. type 1 + chs. 31-45: 3 no. type 3
5 Chs. 31-45: 3 no. type 3
6 Chs. 1 to 5: 4 no. type 1

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Figure 3. Edinburgh test results - alum coagulant. Figure 4. Edinburgh test results - Moringa coagulant.

Figure 5. Laser-Doppler anemometry measurements.

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Figure 6. Thyolo test results.

charge from the V-notch weir to promote rapid mixing in of 60° to the horizontal and arranged in an array of 25 over
the turbulence of the reversing flow. the tank width and 50 over the length. The clarified water
Flow from the mixing tank dropped directly into the decants into a series of 10mm diameter openings along
flocculator channel through a 230mm by 60mm rectangular the length of 4 outlet tubes placed longitudinally at the
slot. The mixing tank was fed through a flexible pipe top of the tank. For some tests the tank outflow was
allowing it to be positioned at any point along the passed downwards through a sand filter bed with nomi-
flocculator channels for the required flocculator retention nal retention time of around 15min.
time.
An alternative mixing procedure by-passed the mixing
tank, by dosing coagulant directly into the raw water pipe Test results at Thyolo
250mm from its outlet end. A plastic mesh inserted into Fig.6 shows results from six typical test runs. During most
the pipe over this end section effected the mixing. runs removal efficiencies were less than 90% for the first
Each of the three hydraulic flocculators is 5200mm two to three hours. It was concluded that this period was
long, 1200mm wide and 250mm deep with an average required for the sedimentation tank to come to thermal
slope of 3.5% to the horizontal, containing 120 channels of equilibrium, as, although shaded, the steel walled tank
40mm width. The flocculators are linked in series and was subject to warming on standing. This effect was more
connected to the sedimentation tank by an 80mm wide pronounced for the less dense Moringa flocs than for
channel. Runs have been carried out using from 60 chan- alum.
nels to 360 channels, giving retention times in the Comparing tests 1 and 2, an extended retention time of
flocculators at the applied flow rate of 30±2 l/min of 120 minutes brings no benefits in unbaffled flocculators.
between 20 and 120 minutes. When using any portion of From tests 2 and 3, increasing the turbulence early in the
the flocculators the upstream sections were blocked off. flow improves turbidity reduction, and with mesh in the
For 5 of the tests 3mm square plastic mesh was inserted inflow pipe similar results are obtained to test 3 with a
across the first 15 channels to increase turbulence and retention time of 40 minutes (test 4) and also 20 minutes
accentuate tapered flocculation. (test 6).
The sedimentation tank is a rectangular horizontal flow Alum (test 5) gives better results than Moringa (test 4)
tank of effective capacity 4.2 m 3, giving a nominal reten- at the settling tank outlet, probably due to denser floc, but
tion time of 2h 20min. Tube settlers fill the tank and are of after the sand filtration stage (tests 4, 5 and 6) the final
50mm o.d. PVC and 1.15 m in length, inclined at an angle effluent quality for either coagulant is consistently close

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to, or below, 1 NTU and is thus substantially below the References

WHO guideline for drinking water of <5 NTU.
McConnachie, G. L., ‘Water treatment for developing
Additional trials will be carried out in Malawi during
countries using baffled-channel hydraulic flocculation’,
the next rainy season (from December 1994). Work will be
Proc. Instn. Civ. Engrs. Water, Maritime & Energy, 101,
concentrated on the lower range of retention times in the
Mar., pp55-61, 1993.
flocculators and on optimisation of the tube settler unit.
Sutherland, J. P., Folkard, G. K., and Grant, W. D., ‘Natu-
Acknowledgements ral coagulants at pilot scale’, in: Pickford, J. {ed} Water,
The financial support of the U.K. Overseas Development Environment and Management, Proc. 18th WEDC Conf.,
Administration is acknowledged. The authors are also Kathmandu, Nepal, Loughborough Univ. of Technology
grateful for assistance and technical support provided by Press, pp51-54, 1993.
personnel of the Ministry of Works Water Department of
the Malawi Government, the Forestry Research Institute Sutherland, J. P., Folkard, G. K., Mtawali, M. A., and
of Malawi and the University of Malawi. Cooperation of Young, R. J., ‘Performance of a Natural Coagulant at Pilot
the Environmental Engineering Group at the University and Full Scale in Malawi’, Proc. 1st Southern Africa Water
of Leicester, U.K., is also appreciated. & Wastewater Conf., Johannesburg, 1993.

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