how does a drinking water treatment plant work?

Water Treatment Plant:

The process of making water suitable for use is called water treatment

As all living things require water for their lives also the use of water in industries and in other practical works is significant. And we all know that at every palace in the world the pure water or clean water is not available so we use Some techniques to improve the water quality.  One of them is a water treatment plant.
The concept of Water treatment plant is now a days widely used by many of countries. Although its initial cost is very high but its performance is very good.
So now I am going to share with you that how this work..

Conventional water treatment plant:

The flow chart of conventional water treatment plant is given below check out this

Source Intake structure → Primary  sedimentation → coagulation and flocculation → Secondary sedimentation → Filtration → Disinfection  → Storage/Distribution.

• Source:

Source is the place from where we get the water to treat it may be a stream a river or a ocean. There is a large quantity of water is available in source we withdraw water from the source according to the capacity of our water treatment plant.

• Intake Structure:

It is a structure which is constructed Across the flow of water to withdraw water from the source. Its capacity depends upon our need and the capacity of treatment plant.It may be covered or may be uncovered But mostly they are covered to reduce the growth of ALGAE.

• Screening:

The process of removal of large floating matters such as Dead animals, trees parts , tranches , Debris etc from water through a screen. Screen are generally of two types

1. Course screen 
2. Fine screen

Course screen is used to remove the large floating bodies and organic solids. while on the other hand fine screen is used to remove the suspended solids.

• Primary Sedimentaion :

Defined as the separation of the removal of the suspended solids by the gravity. If the specific gravity of particle is more than the Specific gravity  of water (e.g greater than 1) then it will settle down with certain velocity.

The part of water treatment plant where sedimentation occur is called a sedimentation tank or settling tank. Its cleaning capacity is about 75% of removal of bacteria and 60% of removal of suspended solids.(S.S)

• Coagulation and Flocculation:

In water treatment plant Coagulation is the process of combining many small particles into a large one.
Its working principle is that Ist by adding chemicals we make destabilize the particles and after this we provide particle transport (by providing inter particle contact by slow mixing)

Flocculation is the integral part of the coagulation.It is a slow mixing technique which promotes the agglomeration of the destabilized particles.

• Secondary sedimentation:

Now again we put the water coming from coagulation and flocculation tank. The floc in this process get settled down. Sedimentation tank may of continous type or of fill and draw type.

• Filteration:

The process of removal suspended particles from water by passing it through some granular media (like Sand etc) is known as filteration.

There are a lot of filters for this work

1. Pressure filter
2. Gravity filter

OR

1. Slow sand filter.
2. Rapid sand filter.

• Disinfection:

Disinfection of water refers to the distruction/killing of disease causing microbes/ microorganisms.

for this purpose we mainly use chlorine to kill pathogenic bacteria.

Methods of Disinfection:

1. Mechanical method.( sedimentation tank )
2. Physical method (By Boiling/ Heating, Sunlight , Ultraviolet rays, Ultra sonic waves)
3. Chemical method ( By Adding Chlorine)

• Storage/Distribuition:

Now our water is ready to supply or we can store it for some time in our OHT and then at the time of requirement we use it.

The whole summary is here

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