III Middle East Regional Conference on Civil Engineering Technology and III International

Symposium on Environmental Hydrology, American Society of Civil Engineers - Egypt Section

(ASCE-EGS), Cairo, Egypt, 8-10 April 2002

Efficiency of Iron and Manganese Removal From

Groundwater Using Aeration Tower in Nile Valley, Egypt

Ahmed Khalaf Abdel-Lah 1,

Mohamed Shamrukh Mahmoud 2, and
Shehata Atia Abadai 3

ABSTRACT:
Iron and manganese are found with high concentrations in the ground water of Nile Valley
aquifer. They probably originate from the dissolution of iron and manganese-bearing minerals
exist in the aquifer. Iron and manganese are common water contaminants that are not
considered health hazards. Their presence in water results in staining as well as, offensive
tastes and appearances. In an effort to provide adequate and safe drinking water to the
customers and to comply with the standards, a treatment process has been introduced. In the
last five years, a few numbers of treatment units were constructed utilizing the processes of
aeration tower and filtration to remove iron and manganese from the wells in the Nile Valley.

A case study has been conducted, autumn of 2001, to assess the efficiency of an aeration-
tower treatment process located at the city of Farshout (Qena governorate), Nile Valley.
Water samples were collected and concentrations of iron and manganese have been measured
for the wellfield, filtered and distributed water. Quality of raw water during the investigation
period was fairly consistent. This oxidation process was successful in reducing iron level to
below standard of 0.3 mg/L. nevertheless, manganese concentration was still higher than
allowable level of 0.1 mg/L.

INTRODUCTION
Elevated levels of iron and manganese in drinking water lead to health and aesthetic concerns.
Such as problems associated with staining of cloths and plumping fixtures, and boiled
vegetables, and incrustation of water mains. The later process of water mains leads to
customer complaints of high turbid and brownish/black water at tap (Odell, 2001). In
addition, water containing iron and manganese promotes the growth of iron and manganese-
tolerant bacteria in pipelines with accompanying increases in friction loss and power
consumption. Therefore, the Egyptian drinking water guidelines specify a maximum
concentration of 0.3 mg/L and 0.1 mg/L for iron and manganese, respectively.

1
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Assiut University, EGYPT
e-mail: khalaf201@yahoo.com
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, ElMinia University, EGYPT
e-mail: m.shamrukh@excite.com
3
Research Scientist, Egyptalum Company, EGYPT

1
The majority of ground water contains iron and manganese in solution that are derived from
the location and past movement of subsurface water. The type and concentration of these salts
depend on the environment of the aquifer and the surrounding rocks. Such as: amphiboles,
ferromanganesion mica, ferrous sulfate, iron pyrite, magnetite, sandstone rocks, and iron clay
mineral are the source of dissolved iron. The dissolved manganese comes most often from
metamorphic rocks, mica biotite, and amphibole hornblende minerals (AWWA, 1990).

Iron and manganese that found in ground water system are predominately found in their
reduced forms: ferrous iron ion (Fe2+) and manganous manganese ion (Mn2+). Iron and
manganese removal can be accomplished with chemical oxidation of soluble form to its
insoluble oxide form. The insoluble form is then subsequently removed during the
downstream processes (e.g., filtration). The oxidation of those reduced forms of iron and
manganese results in formation of ferric iron (Fe3+) and manganic manganese (Mn4+),
sometimes (Mn3+) is formed as well. These oxidized forms of these compounds generally
precipitate as iron hydroxide (Fe(OH)3) and manganese dioxide (MnO2). Oxidized iron and
manganese can result in particles smaller than 5 micron in size. Then, the precipitates that are
formed can be removed by filtration processes, although the precipitates are oven very small
(Odell, 2001).

In addition, oxidation reaction kinetics can vary greatly depending on type of oxidant used,
pH, water temperature, and the presence of organic complexes. The most commonly used
oxidants are chlorine, chlorine dioxide, and potassium permanganate (Odell, 2001)Often
multiple oxidants are used and contact chambers are included in the design. The following
equations represent the oxidation of iron and manganese by oxygen, respectively (Coulter and
Gagnon, 2001):

2Fe 2  O2  2H 2 O  2FeO 2  4H  ……..………………(1)

2Mn 2  O2  2H 2 O  2MnO2  4H  ………………..….(2)

This paper will present case study of actual full-scale aeration tower system. This system was
designed specially to treat iron and manganese from ground water in the Nile Valley aquifer.
Process design information and water samples analysis will be presented to assess the
efficiency of removal process of the treatment plant.

IRON AND MANGANESE REMOVAL PLANT

The study site, Farshout City, is one of Qena governorate cities which is located in the
southern part of the Nile Valley. Its population about 70 thousands and it depends on ground
water as a source of drinking water demands. In late eighties, high concentrations of iron and
manganese were observed in the ground water of the extraction wells. Therefore, a treatment
plant was designed and constructed to remove that elevated concentrations of iron and
manganese from the ground water in year 1998. In fact, a few number of this treatment model
were constructed in scattered sites within the Arab Republic of Egypt. Most of those plants
were designed and constructed by Qaha Company for Chemical Industrials, Egypt.

2
The complete water supply system consists from three parts. A schematic diagram showing
the plant system is given in Figure 1. Those three parts are the extraction deep wells, the
removal plant, and the distribution pipeline network. The ground water is extracted
throughout a four deep wells each 85m length and 140m3/h production capacity. All four
wells extract ground water from the sand-gravel layer of the Nile Valley aquifer. The extracted
ground water is pumped to the waterfall aerator that is followed by the filtration process.

Chlorine

Potassium
Calcium Distribution
Permanganat
hydroxide system
e

Pressure
Aeration Filter
Tower
Well
field

Sand&gravel
aquifer

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the iron and manganese removal plant from the well water,
Nile Valley aquifer.

3
Then, the finished water is pumped to the distribution pipelines that serve the city. Chlorine
gas is applied after the aeration process and prior to the filtration process as a disinfectant.
The maximum total capacity of the treatment plant is 8000 m3/day when the four wells are
pumped. The current operation schedule of the wells is two or three wells are on from
7:00AM to 2:00PM and one well is on from 2:00PM to 7:00AM.

The oxidation of iron and manganese in this site is achieved using the waterfall aerator tower.
The tower is circular in shape and constructed from reinforced concrete. It is consists of three
trays (six compartments) with total high of 20m, Figure 1. Every tray is equipped with
perforated bottoms over which water is distributed and allowed to fall into a collection basin
at the base. The holes diameter of those perforated trays is about 12.5cm. Thus, the falling
water is broken into thin films, thereby increasing the area of water exposed to air per unit
volume.

In this removal unit, Fe and Mn oxidation was designed depending on the ideal theoretical
stoichiometric ratio of oxidant to metal for each reaction, see two previous equations (Casale
et al., 2001). According to the plant manual, the estimated volume of air necessary to oxide
iron and manganese is 0.5 and 1.0 liter for 1.0 gm of iron and manganese, respectively (Qaha,
1995). It should be noted that estimating of water aeration demand is an inexact science due
to the large number of items that influence oxygen uptake. Lack of sufficient aeration
capacity is perhaps the number one cause of aeration system that fails to improve water
quality. The falling water is then collected downstream from the lower tray orifices into a
collection basin. To remove oxidized iron and manganese precipitated from solution, the flow
is delivered to a pressure filter. Then the filtered effluent from the pressure filter is delivered
to service.

In this treatment plant, there are two feeding points, one for potassium permanganate and the
other for alkali. Potassium permanganate is used as oxidant in case of observed elevated
concentrations of iron and manganese in the well water. Alkali, calcium hydroxide, is fed to
raise the pH, if required. Because of some complaints, neither potassium permanganate nor
calcium hydroxide is fed during the current operation of the plant. At the end, chlorine gas is
added to the filtered water as a disinfectant.

SAMPLING PROGRAM
Few complaints have been raised regarding the quality of the treated water from the Farshout
plant. Therefore, an investigation study was carried out for this plant. Many grab samples
were collected from different points. The locations of samples are: four production wells,
aerator inlet, filter exit, and downtown of distribution pipelines (network). These samples
were analyzed chemically and biologically in the field using Hach DR 2000
spectrophotometer, pH meter, and TDS meter. Many other quality parameters were measured
as shown in Table 1.

In addition to current measurements, more water samples have been collected and analyzed in
the laboratory of The Aluminum Company of Egypt located near Farshout City. Many water
quality parameters were measured for each sample which has been collected two months
before. Consequently, the concentrations of iron and manganese were taken from that
reported analysis. Those previous results were added to the current investigation results.

4
ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
As general, the most of quality parameters of well water, as shown in Table 1, are under the
standards of drinking water. From the comparison of water quality parameters pre- and post-
treatment processes, the following results can be drawn. The influence of aeration and
filtration processes on quality parameters such as pH, TDS, nitrate, phosphate, and sulfate is
negligible, Table 1. This effect was anticipated because of the oxidation state of those
species. As shown in Table 1, it is observed that there are higher concentrations of nitrite in
filtrate water than feed water before treatment. From the literature, the transformation of
nitrogen among nitrite, nitrate, ammonium, and other forms is a complex process. Therefore,
those transformations may be the important source of this nitrite increasing in the filtrate
water. To explain this increasing, more measurements of nitrogen are required.

Table 1. Water quality analysis sampled in 2001

location pH TDS Fe Mn NO3 NO2 PO4 SO4 Cl2

Well 1 7.7 610 2.63 0.52 3.52 0.013 0.38 - -

Well 2 7.5 450 0.62 0.45 7.10 0.026 0.50 120 -
Well 3 7.6 460 0.35 0.38 5.30 0.013 0.46 195 -
Well 4 7.5 560 2.67 - 4.40 0.063 0.30 - -
Treated 7.9 480 0.10 0.35 6.15 0.50 0.33 125 1.75

Service 7.6 510 0.19 0.31 5.90 0.58 - 150 0.14

Removing of iron and manganese is the main objective of this treatment plant. The
concentrations of Fe and Mn in feed and filtered water for three measurements at different
days are plotted in Figure 2. The concentration of feed raw water is estimated according to the
number of pumping wells and the concentrations in each one. It is observed that there is no
consistency in Fe and Mn concentrations with time. Furthermore, concentrations of iron in
wellfield water are varied greatly from one well to another. Nevertheless, there is small
variation of manganese concentrations from well to another.

Figure 2 illustrates the mean concentrations of iron and manganese pre-and post-treatment
plant for the three sampling days. It is clear that aeration followed by filtration can be
effective technique for iron removal in Nile Valley. Removal efficiency for iron is typically
above 85%. Furthermore, the filtrate iron concentrations are less than Egyptian standards (0.3
mg/L). Nevertheless, the aeration is not effective technique for manganese removal, as shown
in Figure 2. The efficiency of manganese removal is typically under 35%. In addition, the
manganese concentrations in filtrate water are still higher than standards (0.1 mg/L). Thus,
aeration oxidizes manganese less than iron. These observations of Fe and Mn removal by
aeration are in agreement with many other studies in the literature (Casale et al., 2001; Coluter
and Gagnon, 2001; Odell, 2001). Therefore, oxidation of manganese with aeration is
generally not practiced because it is very slow and dependent on pH. It is reported that, below
pH value of 8.6, the oxidation of Mn is very slow. Therefore, the feeding points of Potassium
permanganate and alkali must be re-considered in the plant operation.

5
 2.0 Feed water

Filtrate

1.6 City
Fe Concentration (mg/L)

1.2

0.8

0.4

0
#1 #2 #3

Sampling dates

(a) Iron concentrations

1.0 Feed water

Filtrate
Mn Concentration (mg/L)

0.8 City

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
#1 #2 #3

Sampling dates

(b) Manganese concentrations

Figure 2. Concentrations of iron and manganese pre- and post-treatment for the three
sampling days

6
CONCLUSION
Efficiency of iron and manganese removal using aeration tower designed by Qaha Company
and located at Farshout City was investigated. Wellfield water quality during the study was
fairly consistent. The Farshout treatment removal plant for wells was found to be highly
efficient in iron removal. The technology of this unit seems to be more acceptable and
adaptable at low levels of iron concentrations. However, this technology is not effective for
manganese removal. This observed limitation of the treatment plant force the designer and
operator to do further development. It seems that the feed point of potassium permanganate
included within the plant must be applied. In addition, raising pH of feed water may be an
another solution to help in manganese oxidation with aeration. In addition, the old ages of
water pipelines network seems are working to decrease water quality at consumer tap.

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