3 Reasons for Applying Aluminum Sulfate Recovery from Water Treatment Sludge

Surface water treatment is considered as the most vital industry, which consumes a lot of resources.

Environmental protection is tightly bounded to the efficient handling of the produced wastes from drinking water production. In developing countries, the main concern is to provide an adequate quantity of safe drinking water with little or no concern for the environment.

As the available budget is enough only for water production with the acceptable quality standards. Recently, the recovery of aluminum coagulants from the wasted sludge has become of a great interest of many researchers because of the following three reasons:

1.    Aluminum recovery shows a way for resources conservation and limiting the depletion of these natural resources. However, the aluminum is abundant in the environment because it is considered as the third element in the earth crust after oxygen and silicon but the costs of its preparation and extraction reveal the importance to be just like the unique elements.

2.    Water policymakers in the poor and developing countries seek only to afford the water as there are very limited resources for that issue with no regard to environmental protection. Simply the water production facilities in the low-income countries dispose its wastes to the environment in waterways or soil considering the easier option. That action harms the environment so much through different kinds of pollution including chemical, physical and biological. The recovery and reuse of aluminum coagulants in the water treatment and production will show an indirect method for motivating the decision makers to protect the environment by reusing the aluminum to treat the water and reduce the costs of the whole operation.

3.    The price of the produced aluminum solutions from the recovery process is less than the buying a fresh coagulant to use in water production. That could be a direct benefit for the recovery.

Finally, aluminum recovery from the sludge produced from water treatment plants should be treated as a resource, not as a problem. We should direct our minds to utilize it not just through and dispose it into the environment. Today environmental protection and maintaining the different species around us is a must and if we did not we will lose much in the future.

References and Resources:

Fouad, M. M., Razek, T., & Elgendy, A. S. (2017). Utilization of Drinking Water Treatment Slurry to Produce Aluminum Sulfate Coagulant. Water Environment Research, 89(2), 186-191.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/wef/wer/2017/00000089/00000002/art00009

Fouad, M. M., El-Gendy, A. S., & Razek, T. M. (2017). Evaluation of leached metals in recovered aluminum coagulants from water treatment slurry. Water Science and Technology, 75(4), 998-1006.

http://wst.iwaponline.com/content/75/4/998

Fouad, M. M., El-Gendy, A. S., & Razek, T. M. (2017). Evaluation of sludge handling using acidification and sequential aluminum coagulant recovery: a case study of El-Sheikh Zayed WTP. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology-Aqua, 66(6), 403-415.

http://aqua.iwaponline.com/content/66/6/403

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