Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Sedimentation (water treatment)
Summary
Sedimentation is a physical water treatment process using gravity to remove suspended solids from water. Solid particles entrained by the turbulence of moving water may be removed naturally by sedimentation in the still water of lakes and oceans. Settling basins are ponds constructed for the purpose of removing entrained solids by sedimentation. Clarifiers are tanks built with mechanical means for continuous removal of solids being deposited by sedimentation. Clarification does not remove dissolved species. Sedimentation is the act of depositing sediment.
Suspended solids (or SS), is the mass of dry solids retained by a filter of a given porosity related to the volume of the water sample. This includes particles 10 μm and greater.
Colloids are particles of a size between 1 nm (0.001 μm) and 1 μm depending on the method of quantification. Because of Brownian motion and electrostatic forces balancing the gravity, they are not likely to settle naturally.
The limit sedimentation velocity of a particle is its theoretical descending speed in clear and still water. In settling process theory, a particle will settle only if:
In a vertical ascending flow, the ascending water velocity is lower than the limit sedimentation velocity.
In a longitudinal flow, the ratio of the length of the tank to the height of the tank is higher than the ratio of the water velocity to the limit sedimentation velocity.
Removal of suspended particles by sedimentation depends upon the size, zeta potential and specific gravity of those particles. Suspended solids retained on a filter may remain in suspension if their specific gravity is similar to water while very dense particles passing through the filter may settle. Settleable solids are measured as the visible volume accumulated at the bottom of an Imhoff cone after water has settled for one hour.
Gravitational theory is employed, alongside the derivation from Newton's second law and the Navier–Stokes equations.
Stokes' law explains the relationship between the settling rate and the particle diameter.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.