Plate Settler Sourcing

As the AguaClara project continues to expand, the desire to design and construct water treatment plants as efficiently and effectively as possible is becoming more relevant. The plate settlers that AguaClara is currently designing and suggesting that the communities build are relatively cheap to construct, but are extremely meticulous and complicated to assemble. This page is dedicated to an assessment of outsourcing the construction and possibly the design of the settlement systems in AguaClara water treatment plants. It takes into account economics, maintenance, durability, environmental impact, and supply chain issues.

Relevant Information

• AguaClara sedimentation tank upflow velocity 70 m/day
• AguaClara sedimentation tank capture velocity 10 m/day
• AguaClara sedimentation Area ratio, Velocity Up/Velocity Capture is on the order of 10, ideally we want this ratio to be as high a number as possible
• AguaClara sedimentation tank plate settler angle of 60 degrees, plate length of 1 meter at 60 degrees, plate material is transparent polycarbonate sheets
• Current AguaClara engineer John Erickson has given a very optimistic estimate of 20 years of water plant use for the polycarbonate sheets
• John has also stated that the plates that were introduced into the town of Ojojona Honduras's AguaClara plant were constructed of fiberglass and after 2.5 years are already showing significant signs of ware and tear
• The next prospective AguaClara plant to be constructed would be in the town of Gracias Honduras.
• Gracias plant flow rate of 50 liters/sec
• Gracias would have an active sedimentation tank area of 14.026 meters x 2.159 meters per tank, and there would be 3 tanks

Plate Settler Module

Figure 1. Rendering of a module of plate setter.

Figure 1 depicts one dimension of the area of a plate settler module. The second length that the area consists of is the width of the plate settler into the page when viewing figure 1. AguaClara plate settler modules are 1 meter in width and 1 meter in length (1m x 1m). Each plate is 1 meter long, not 1 meter high. The spacing between baffles is 5 cm.

Current AguaClara Plate Settler Module Cost

Table 1. The cost of a module of plate settler.

Table 1 details the cost of a 1 square meter module of plate settler. The specific cost of a module is $298.02. At this price the cost of the Gracias plate settler system will be $9024.68.

Settling Tank Drawings

Companies of Interest

Brentwood Industries
Enviropax
Siemens
Meurer Research Inc.

Recommendations After Analysis