Initial Clear Well Research

A clear well is a reservoir for storage of filter effluent water. The main objective of clear wells is to provide a buffer between production and adduction. Clear wells can serve other functions in water treatment plants such as:

• compensating for eventual storage capacity deficit
• making a spare water volume for filter backwashing and other uses
• as part of the treatment processes: disinfection, pH, and calcium carbonate stability adjustments.
  Figure 1 shows how the clear well fits in a conventional water treatment plant:
  

  Figure 1: Clear well location in a water treatment plant (http://www.gls.fr/pdf/Article4.pdf)

Additional compartments can be added in order to:

• aerate the water
• store filtered water for backwashing before disinfectant addition
• ensure a contact time for disinfection, before final pH correction

Conventional clear wells involve pumps and sometimes valves, which the operator or a machine would have to open and close. Here is an example:

Figure 2: An example of a conventional clear well (http://www.gls.fr/pdf/Article4.pdf)

We cannot use electricity in our design and we want to make things as simple as possible for the operator so that he or she can be ready to act if something goes wrong, so this kind of design is out of the question for AguaClara. Instead, we are working on developing a gravity powered design.