Factors impacting water quality vary based on geography, infrastructure, industry and even climate, making water treatment a constantly evolving practice that faces new demands every day.
A new system that combines targeted circulation of standing water with a novel technique for removing pollutants just might have the versatility needed to address water contamination in a rapidly changing world.
Simple PVC Sprinkler Reduces Bacterial Infections In the municipal water tanks used to supply drinking water to communities throughout the United States and Canada, the layer of water above the tanks’ intake and outtake pipes is stagnant.
Until now, the primary method for preventing infection has been avoiding the upper water layer by drawing the drinking supply from the bottom of the water tank.
Using this mechanism, incoming water was sprinkled evenly across the surface of water contained in a cylindrical tank, and the reverse sprinkler at the bottom of the tank drew out water from more than one location.
The parallel downward streamlines generated by this sprinkler system eliminated the majority of the stagnation zones within the tank.
Magnetic Removal of Adsorbed Molecules Addresses Wide Range of Synthetic Contaminants No circulation system is going to prevent contamination by micropollutants, which can enter the water supply through discarded or excreted medication, recycled laundry water or industrial runoff.
A system that relies on adsorption by magnetic nanoparticles to remove micropollutants requires minimal infrastructure changes when adopted by a water treatment plant.
The Future of Water Treatment The newly developed PVC sprinklers and magnetite nanoparticles have only been tested in small-scale laboratory water tanks.
To bring them into real-life water treatment plants, the systems would have to be scaled up, but the adaptability makes them well-suited to widespread testing throughout North America.