7/5/2019
Water DiscussionsPoor Raw Water Clarifier Preformance - Floating Floc Flat
Posted By
Started: 6/28/2019 9:00 AM
Pennell, Alicia
Posted: 6/28/2019 3:14 PM
Duttlinger Jr, William
Posted: 7/3/2019 10:12 AM
Duttlinger Jr, William
Posted: 7/4/2019 7:23 PM
Schellenberg, John
https://core.champ-tech.com/Wat/Lists/Discussions/Flat.aspx?RootFolder=%2fWat%2fLists%2fDiscussions%2fPoor Raw Water Clarifier Preformance …
Poor Raw Water Clarifier Preformance - Floating Floc - Flat
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Poor Raw Water Clarifier Preformance - Floating Floc
My customer is struggling to improve effluent quality in their lamella style raw water clarifier. The flowrate through the equipment is understood to be ~150gal/min too high
for the size of the unit to promote good settling and consistent effluent quality, but due to water demand of the plant the flow must be kept at this rate. Coagulant and
flocculant dosages have been confirmed appropriate in many jar tests, however effluent quality is poor, with visible floc being carried out to the pressure filters and the
demin trains down stream. Floc seems to be floating in large amounts rather than settling, see picture attached. Due to the amount of floating sludge the customer
frequently needs to drain the clarifier and clean it. They drain water level to below their settlers and wash using a hose to force floating floc back down below
the sludge settling columns or honeycombs. This rarely helps for long if at all.
There is no sludge recirculation in this unit. The clarifier sludge valleys are blown down 2X/day. If initial blow down is clear the valleys are backwashed and blown down again
until the water runs clear.
Any similar experience or suggestions to improve floc settling and effluent quality would be appreciated.
Thanks
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Hi Alicia,
What coagulant and flocculant is being used and at what dosages? Have they increased or decreased the water treatment chemistries to see how that changes the
system? How much of an increase is 150 gal/min over design What is the quality of the influent and what are the KPIs of the system? Does the influent water quality change
over time/does it change rapidly?
Not sure if there is an ITC in your area. If there is, give them a shout and see if you can get a field visit. Otherwise, I'd be happy to try to help as best I can.
Regards,
Bill
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One other question I had was regarding injection points: Where are they in relation to the clarifier?
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Hello Alicia, I am an ITC with OFC Upstream Water Solutions. A Lamella clarifier desires to run at the unit's specific design. They are not as forgiving like a dissolved air
floatation unit (DAF) that includes energy. If the Lamella influent rate is higher than the design, the clarification will struggle with providing efficient settling and result
in carryover even if the jar test indicates the type chemistry and dose is right. Excessive flowrate will cause disruption of the settling in the plates and chronic carryover. If
the water quality (oil, TDS, TSS) is laden and you apply chemistry to enhance clarification to generate liquid / solids separation and the clarifier is at flow rate higher than the
clarifier can handle, you will see what you are seeing. The plates / packing can load too fast or not allow good solids settling and after that the solids have to go somewhere
which is carryover. Once the clarifier is at maximum loading, there is no where for the solids to go except as carryover. If at the cleaning cycle they are not getting clean
enough, when they put the unit back in service you will loose solids capture since solids are already in the packing and shortens run and then carryover. In addition, you
may find changing the chemistry may help if you can tighten up the solids to improve settling efficiency. This will take more bench testing. In your bench jar testing do you
see significant floating solids on top of the jar sample, center of the jar is clear and there are solids settled on the bottom? If there is an underfeed or over feed of chemistry
you can experience poor separation and carryover.
Need to review where the chemicals are being fed, feed method and if are subjected to enough energy for good mixing. Are you using a coagulant and flocculant
combination? IF using a flocculant are you using a make down unit or other? You maybe able to get some relief with addition of a coagulant aid (current coagulant plus the
aid) to optimize solids settling. What is the actual products you are using at this time? What is the pH of the water and do you have influent and effluent water quality test
data?
Maybe prudent to have their engineer or their clarifier provider to review the mass balance for the mechanics. Have not seen your process survey and if you are onshore or
offshore, but if they are open to redesign, upgrade or possibly adding another clarification stage, they maybe able to reduce the carryover to get some relief. For simple
example, if the water is very oily, you could remove more oil in a 1st stage clarifier (oil/water separator) to reduce load to the Lamella clarifier/2nd stage. This is not
uncommon configuration for oily produced water. Let me know if I can help.
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