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You are mixing two concepts here. Turbidity is an optical property that is correlated with the volume of suspended solids. Natural organic matter can be either dissolved or particulate and thus may or may not contribute to turbidity. Increasing the turbidity by adding more clay is not expected to affect the foam formation. |
- The film foam formation may not be due to the alum dosage or the turbidity, it may in fact be due to the location that the alum is added to the system; above water surface vs below water surface. We hypothesize that the film foam formation will be greater when the alum is applied to the surface of the water
- For all of the experiments conducted we will take pictures at 10 minute intervals of the surface of the water to determine if there is film foam formation.
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There is substantial evidence from the plant at Cuatro comunidades that the foam is generated from air bubbles that are entrained in the rapid mix and transported to the first chamber of the flocculator. I suggest that you investigate the effect of aeration after rapid mix to see if that causes foam formation. Your goal is to generate foam, so do a quick series of experiments where you add natural organic matter (you can use humic acid that we have in the lab) and alum to water that is aerated. If that doesn't form foam in 5 minutes, then we may need to find a different source of natural organic matter such as Fall Creek. At this stage there is no need to take pictures or to conduct long experiments. The first goal is simply to see what is required to reproduce the foam problem. |