Annual report Chair on Drinking Water Engineering 2007 - TU Delft

NEW TREATMENT CONCEPTS FOR DRINKING WATER PRODUCTION
Research objectives
New treatment concepts are investigated for large scale but also for small scale drinking water production. The
research is aiming at high tech solutions in order to further improve the water quality in the Netherlands. But
also innovative treatment concepts for developing countries and remote area’s are investigated. The implementation
of new technologies is part of the research.
Project outline
Introduction
In the densely populated industrial countries there is a growing concern for the micro pollutants in the water
sources of the drinking water production. The apolar micro pollutants are well removed by activated carbon.
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disadvantages. To create a robust barier against all micro pollutants it is probably necessary to have two bar-
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In developing countries the removal of human pathogens (microorganism and viruses) has the highest priority
to provide safe drinking water to the people in rural area’s. Most of the time there is no distribution network
so the treatment system should be designed for village scale (500 people) or even household scale (10 people).
So the treatment systems investigated are most of the time low-tech disinfection techniques for remote
area’s preferably driven by solar or wind energy. Also sustainable desalination concepts (on wind and sun)
are investigated.
Approach
Most of the time experimental research is done on both lab scale as well as pilot scale. Sometimes it is useful
to model the results to get a better understanding of what is happening. From the pilot scale we learn important
design parameters and water production rate. We can estimate the investment costs of a full scale installation
and can estimate a water price. This is also important for the village or household systems. Also we can
measure the water quality produced with the investigated treatment concept.
Results
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solids, NOM and micro pollutants in one step.
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• Seawater evaporation by sun power using vapour compression. Sustainable production of fresh water from
saline water.
• Drinking with the wind: combination sea water desalination with a windmill. Sustainable production of fresh
water from saline water.
• Ammonium removal with zeolites. Adsorptive removal of ammonium.
• Sustainable small scale treatment systems. Treatment systems for developing countries and remote areas.
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46 <strong>Annual</strong> <strong>report</strong> DWE 2007