United Utilities treats water to PAC Dosing System
16 March 2010
The Spiroflow PAC Dosing System is keeping the water sweet at the Cowm Water Treatment Plant at Wardle, Lancashire.
Being an approved supplier to United Utilities, Spiroflow Ltd were ideally placed to bid for the Powder Activated Carbon (PAC) dosing system. Procurement of the dosing system was through the Integrated Alliance+ South Delivery (IAS), an integrated group of main contractors comprising Galliford Try and its joint venture partners Costain and Atkins. Together they have formed GCA and are working together to deliver United Utilities’ AMP4 Capital Investment Programme. Spiroflows' bid was successful on price and according to Darren Glover of GCA;
“The equipment is very good. We had an initial teething problem caused by unexpected clumps of PAC which Spiroflow quickly remedied by fitting a vibrator to the collection hopper. The system has worked well ever since”.
The dosing system comprises a ‘Spiroflow’ Bulk Bag Discharger, with integral lifting hoist on a runway beam for the easy loading of bags of PAC into the discharger, and a Flexible Screw Conveyor to transfer PAC from the discharger up to a volumetric metering feeder with buffer hopper above, from here it is transferred to a second buffer hopper, which maintains a constant head of material above a ‘Transvac’ venturi ejector. It is in this educator that PAC is drawn under vacuum from the second buffer hopper and metered proportionately into a by-pass water stream to form a slurry that then re-enters, and is mixed, with the main water flow into the water treatment works and subsequently the distribution system that serves homes and businesses in the Rochdale area.
Spiroflow Ltd works closely with Transvac Systems Ltd when supplying dosing systems for water and effluent treatment applications. Transvac are world leaders in ejector technology and supplied the skid mounted components that introduce the solids into the water stream. The second buffer hopper that feeds PAC into the ejector incorporates ‘high’ and ‘low’ level probes which, along with the flow sensors in the by-pass pipe-work, make up the highly reliable monitoring system developed by Transvac to shut-down the dosing system and to trigger an alarm in the event of a foreign body causing a disturbance to the balance of the treatment process.
The reason that the PAC is added to the water is to neutralise a naturally occurring material known as Geosmin, which literally translates as ‘earth smell’. It is an organic compound produced by microbes and algae which gives untreated water a harmless yet undesirable earthy taste and aroma.
The ‘Spiroflow’ Bulk Bag Discharger is complete with a bag outlet clamping system which enables the operator to untie the neck seal of the bag within the dust cabinet below the bag, to close the doors and then to open the clamp remotely allowing the PAC material to discharge in a totally contained manner - protecting both the operator and the working environment. This is particularly important when handling light, fluffy powders such as PAC that readily become air-borne.
Bag massagers are fitted to the bag support dish so that, in the event of a well compacted bag whose contents are reluctant to flow, they are automatically operated to break any bridges and ensure a continuous flow of PAC.
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