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\begin_layout Title
Plate Settler Spacing
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\begin_layout Abstract
The floc roll up as a failure mechanism in plate settlers has been proven
 by the plate settler team using kaolin/alum flocs.
 The density of flocs made primarily from natural organic matter, NOM, may
 be significantly lower than the density of kaolin/alum flocs and thus they
 may be much more vulnerable to floc roll up.
 This hypothesis can be tested by repeating several experiments using humic
 acid instead of kaolin in the raw water.
 The most extreme case is a raw water that is colored with organic matter,
 but has no suspended inorganic matter.
 It may be prudent to use NOM flocs as the critical case to ensure that
 floc roll up is never a failure mechanism in AguaClara facilities.
 After testing the floc roll up response of NOM flocs it will be possible
 to assess the feasibility of further reduction in spacing between plate
 settlers.
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\begin_layout Labeling
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Students 2 
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Skills fluid mechanics, process controller, data analysis
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\begin_layout Section
Raw Water Composition
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\begin_layout Standard
Currently, the raw water entering the system is mixed with the concentrated
 kaolin clay.
 The combination of the two ensures that the influent turbidity is at 100
 NTU.
 Yet, it was suggested that that team might switch from using clay to experiment
ing with natural organic matter (NOM) to simulate field conditions for the
 water treatment plants.
 The most extreme case to evaluate is the case of NOM without any inorganic
 particulate matter.
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\begin_layout Section
Floc Blanket
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\begin_layout Standard
Presently, the team uses a floc blanket – a system of suspended flocs -
 in its operations.
 However, most of the AguaClara water treatment plants do not currently
 have floc blankets.
 Therefore, to mimic these conditions, the team could test the performance
 of the plate settlers without the floc blanket.
 The absence of floc blanket should change the particle distribution entering
 the tube settlers and consequently will affect the performance.
 
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\begin_layout Section
Coagulant Type
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\begin_layout Standard
We are using alum as our coagulant to facilitate the creation of flocs.
 Another option for the choice of coagulant would be PACl (polyaluminium
 chloride).
 PACl is currently used as a flocculant in a several water treatment plants
 in Honduras.
 It is not known if the coagulant type has a significant effect on the density
 of the resulting flocs.
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