SEWAGE TREATMENT

The water treatment plant present in the NITC campus mainly

deals with the treatment of drainage water, coming from
various mess and canteen kitchens, and all the other taps.
Whereas sewage water produced from hostels and various
other institutions is dumped directly into an appropriate
nearby landfill.

The dirty drainage water, containing big and small impurities

is first brought into an accumulator, which then flows into a
rectangular chamber after a certain height.

From this chamber, it then goes to another similar chamber

through a semi-permeable mesh, which separates out the
solid-semi solid impurities from the sludge.

In this new chamber, the aeration of the waste water takes

place, which helps in aiding in its decomposition into simpler forms. Wastewater aeration is the
process of adding air into wastewater to allow aerobic bio-degradation of the pollutant
components. It is an integral part of most biological wastewater treatment systems.

Later, this waste water is then pumped up to a higher level and is allowed to settle for some time.
It then goes into 2 paths; each governed by a flow gate, which when opened allows this sludge to
flow into another mesh filter, further removing the solid particles in this wastewater to a further
extent.
Later on, it re-joins back again into a single path, with many v-notches present all along; the V-
notch weir, a triangular channel section, is used to measure small discharge values, with the aid
of an electronic flowmeter.

As it flows on after the separation process, the

height on the surface which it flows on is
raised in a gradual manner, eventually ending
up into two large rectangular pits, both of
them connected with each other.

In these chambers, theres a large number of black

colored ball shaped structures, which act as micro-
sponges soaking up all the other minute impurities
and even bacteria.

The water is allowed to settle in this chamber for some time.

Theres a spout leading out of one of these tanks, out through which this treated water flows out,
and later on overflows into another chamber, where it undergoes further processing.
This tank serves as an input for 2 tanks
namely Pressure Sand Filter and Activated Carbon Filter, and finally with an advent of an
intensive Chlorination process, the water treatment process is termed complete, ready for further
use.

Pressure Sand Filter

Pressure Sand Filter is

an ideal solution for the
systems with high
sediment, silt, sand, and
turbidity. The sand
filters are specially
designed to take care of
the range of suspended
impurities. The
Pressure Sand Filter is
a depth filter that
makes use of coarse and fine media mixed together in a fixed proportion. This arrangement
produces a filter bed with adequate pore dimensions for retaining both large and small suspended
particles. Pressure sand filter is highly recommended for the removal of suspended solids & un-
dissolved impurities like dust particles & heavy metals etc. doing so it reduces turbidity.

Activated Carbon Filter

The Activated Carbon Filters are designed to remove free chlorine, organic matter, odour and
Colour present in the raw water and waste water. Due to its high degree of micro porosity,
activated carbons provide a huge surface area.
Activated carbon filter operates through adsorption. Adsorption is directly related to the surface
area of the media. This great surface area furnishes a huge adsorption area for organic as well as
chlorine molecules to attach themselves. The Activated Carbon Filters consist of Activated
carbon granules supported by very fine quartz filter media. Various grades of carbon are
available for specialized treatments.

Chlorination

Water chlorination is the process of

adding chlorine (Cl2)/ hypochlorite to water; this method
is used to kill certain bacteria and other microbes in tap
water as chlorine is highly toxic. In particular, chlorination
is used to prevent the spread of waterborne
diseases like cholera, dysentery, typhoid etc. As
a halogen, chlorine is a highly efficient disinfectant, and is
added to public water supplies to kill disease-causing
pathogens.

The solids segregated in the earlier process are allowed to settle in tanks located behind the hub
of these treatment processes, solidifying them, thus helping in its proper disposal.