Application of Optimum Sodium Ferrate in Zayandehrud River Water Turbidity Removal (Normal and High Turbidity)

In drinking water treatments, for coagulation and sedimentation of suspended particles, several coagulants are used such as Alum, PAC and ferric chloride. In spite of their positive effect on turbidity removal, these chemicals cause some problems like corrosion and harmful by-products which result in bad effects on human and environmental health. Therefore, finding and using better and more effective materials without such adverse effects is a necessity. The aim of this research was to study the effect of chemically synthetized sodium ferrate (S.F.) in liquid state for the turbidity removal from Zayandehrud River in two conditions: normal turbidity (less than 100 NTU) and high turbidity (more than 900NTU). This research was performed in four states of 30×60, 40×60, 60×60, and 30×40; in each state, one of the water independent variables effective on water turbidity was changed. These four states were S.F. dosing rate, gentile mixing speed, rapid mixing time and pH. For the experiment design, analysis and optimization of independent variables effective on turbidity removal were used. In addition, the surface response method (RSM-D-Optimal) plus Design Expert-v10 optimization software were used for this study. Finally, in this research, according to the standard methods, the residual total Fe (due to sodium ferrate) was checked in the research in order to ensure that its value was in the allowable range for drinking water. The results showed optimum conditions as: pH of 8.5 and gentle mixing oscillating speed of 60rpm for 7min, 50rpm for 7min and 40rpm for 6min, (instead of 40rpm constant speed for 20min) and rapid mixing time of 30s with 120rpm (instead of  60s, which was conventional in Esfahan water treatment plant). In addition, the results showed that by using only 1.54mg/L of S.F. in the above-mentioned optimum condition, the water turbidity removal efficiencies were 95.17% and 99.07% for normal and high turbidity states, respectively. A comparison was made in this research between using S.F. and poly aluminum chloride (PAC) for both normal and high turbidity. The results showed the better effect of S.F. than PAC. The results also showed that the residual total Fe was in the allowable range before and after the filter (because of the reactivity of ferrate with Fe). From the results of this research, it can be concluded that using S.F. has a positive effect, technically and economically, on water turbidity removal (better effect than conventional chemicals) in both normal and high turbidity. Moreover, the results showed that residual total Fe remains in the allowable range.