Unit processes
Water treatment unit processes are the distinct process steps in a water treatment plant. For example filtration is one unit process, commonly used with chlorination which is a second unit process.
Water treatment unit processes list
A list of water treatment unit processes, ordered where possible from source to tap:
- Raw Water Storage
- Screening
- Bar screens
- Band screens
- Drum screens
- Microstrainers
- Flow control
- pH control & chemical dosing
- Flocculation & coagulation
- Mixing
- Coagulation
- Polyelectrolyte & coagulant aid use
- Clarification
- Sedimentation
- Grit channels
- Sedimentation basins
- Sludge blanket clarifiers
- Tube settlers / inclined plate / lamella clarifiers
- Floatation
- Dissolved Air Floatation
- Sedimentation
- Softening
- Stripping
- Oxidation
- Chlorine
- Ozone
- Chlorine dioxide
- Aeration/Oxygenation
- Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs)
- Fentons reagent (hydrogen peroxide/iron)
- Photo-Fenton
- Electro-Fenton
- Titanium dioxide/UV
- Hydrogen peroxide/UV
- Ozone/UV
- Titanium dioxide/Ozone
- Fentons reagent (hydrogen peroxide/iron)
- Filtration
- Media filtration
- Depth filtration
- Rapid Gravity Filtration (RGF)
- Multi-media filtration
- Biological filtration
- Slow sand filtration
- Biological activated carbon
- Depth filtration
- Membrane filtration
- Micro-filtration (MF)
- Ultrafiltration (UF)
- Nano-filtration (NF)
- Reverse Osmosis (RO)
- Media filtration
- Desalination
- Adsorption
- Activated Carbon
- Granular Activated Carbon (GAC)
- Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC)
- Zeolites
- Activated Carbon
- Ion Exchange
- Disinfection
- Sludge treatment
- Thickening
- Dewatering
- Belt press
- Plate press
- Centrifuge
- Thermal drying
- Anaerobic digestion
- Disposal / beneficial use
These are water treatment unit processes used in the production of potable (drinking), process & ultrapure water for municipal and industrial uses.
We intend to keep the above list up to date, and hope to eventually produce articles on all processes in the list. We are prioritising the writing of these articles by need, so please contact us if there is a unit process that you would particularly like to read about, or if there is a unit process missing from the above list.